


Mass Effect 3: Omega

by ere_the_sun_rises (orphan_account)



Series: A Matter of Change [5]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Amazon Trio, Canonical Character Death, F/F, F/M, Female Character In Command, Invasion, Mass Effect 3: Omega, Multi, POV Female Character, POV First Person, Space Pirates, Unnecessary Amounts of AC/DC were Listened to in Order to Create This, War, Women Being Awesome, Women In Power, badassery, women in charge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-28
Updated: 2013-11-10
Packaged: 2017-12-24 21:34:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 11
Words: 25,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/944911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/ere_the_sun_rises
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>I walked. No, I strode. Then I charged. I ripped right through the last Cerberus trooper, and I faced the station with shoulders squared, gun cocked and hot, and blood smeared across the bridge of my nose.</i>
</p><p> </p><p>  <i>"I'm back, you fuckers."</i></p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Cerberus has claimed Omega- the throne of Aria T'Loak and the dark parody of the Citadel in Terminus Space- as their own. Glenn doesn't know why she's coming back- if it's a tactical issue, or if she simply has unfinished business- with Omega, or Cerberus, or maybe even both. Either way, it's going to take the help of old friends and old flames alike, and possibly a batarian with some really crap details, to take the station back and remind the galaxy of its one rule:</p><p>Don't fuck with Omega.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Story Index

**Author's Note:**

> The index of characters for this installment of "A Matter of Change". All characters, situations, settings, and other items depicted, except those otherwise noted, are property of Bioware.


	2. The Omega Interval

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, people! School has not allowed me to get a lot of writing done, and I've been playing ME2 like mad to get to Omega and thus learn the material, (I finally made it to ME3, and I'm getting there as quick as I can), but I have TWO chapters here that I could write (thankfully, not too DLC-dependent), and give to you all here today. A bit of interesting character studies to help bring home the theme of this piece.
> 
> Also, an artdump:
> 
>  
> 
> [We see a return to Glenn's original outfit from Omega, which I don't think ever got an official drawing...](http://fc01.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2013/258/1/7/glenn_drell_coat_by_vigilante_archangel-d6mgg57.png)
> 
>  
> 
> [Glenn: take it back](http://fc01.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2013/258/e/e/glenn__omega_by_vigilante_archangel-d6mgf19.png)
> 
>  
> 
> [Some high-quality renders of the characters, made on the EVE CC. (UPDATED)](http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2013/300/5/1/characters_from_a_matter_of_pride_by_vigilante_archangel-d6mglgl.png)

Waking up next to my helmsman- though not a new experience- was one that I had almost forgotten, and one that I was loving to relearn. This particular morning, in fact, I came to slowly with Jeff still curled up in my arms- face tucked into his arms, making small snuffling noises. I smiled, tucked my leg over his, and pulled him a little closer with the hands I had placed on his stomach, leaning forward to kiss his cheek.

He stirred slightly, mumbling a “ _wuzat_?” kind of noise and turning slowly to me, opening his eyes just a fraction- then his mouth cracked into a smile- just barely awake, his adoration shone clearly through. “Hey, beautiful,” he mumbled, turning his head enough so as to kiss me in earnest- chaste, just a simple press of lips, pulling away before I could even try to deepen it. “Uh-uh. Normally I’d be more than down for that, but right now I seriously have to take a leak. And if that doesn’t put you off, my morning breath will.” He slid from the bed, stretching, and went looking for his clothes before moving to the door. “Don’t move,” he told me, with a small smirk, and moved out onto the quiet CIC.

I settled back into the mattress, on my back, pulling the covers up under my arms and folding my hands on top of the blankets- counted, the time he was gone. No less than 489 seconds later he had returned, covering a yawn with the back of his hand and crawling back under the covers, smiling, murmuring, “Morning,” and settling down on top of me, pinning my hands to the mattress above my head with his own. He was more willing to kiss me this time, and he tasted like mint toothpaste.

“I slept like a rock last night,” he remarked, pulling away.

“I would be insulted, after what I put you through last night,” I retorted softly, smirking at him.

He blew a sharp puff of air. “Yeah.” He slumped onto me, limp like a ragdoll. “You know, after all that, I think I’m exhausted. I’ll sleep some more.”

“Shove off, you ass,” I said, giggling as I pushed us both up on my elbows. “You’ve started it, and you’re going to finish it.”

“Oh, if you insist,” he sighed, beginning to strip out of his shirt.

“I do,” I said, settling smugly back into the mattress.

He only took another moment in wiggling out of his boxers and kicking them out of the bed before covering my body with his- me already slick and slippery for him and him half-there from sleep, warm all along the points where we touched.

“I love how wet you get,” he murmured, a husky sound next to my ear, breath fanning across my shoulder. His fingers slid down over my belly, stroking through folds of heated flesh. That was mostly to the credit of him and his hands and other things; I’d had less-than-stellar partners before who’d never been able to get me there on their own. Not that I was going to tell him that, it would go to his already-oversized head.

“So fucking good…” he muttered, tonguing the side of my neck, slipping two fingers inside and pressing his thumb lightly into my clit.

“You’re talkative in the mornings,” I said, looking at him. It took him a moment to respond, so I knew he was still waking up. “You want me to get you off, or not?”

“I wasn’t _complaining_ ,” I sighed, settling into the cushions and propping my hands up behind my head, waving a hand down at his general area of occupation. “Please, continue.”

“You sure?” he muttered, before scooting down my belly, dipping his head and kissing lightly above my clit, running his tongue down the curve of my hip. “Ah, yeah. Look at that.” I just cocked an eyebrow at him (he didn’t notice, he was quite preoccupied with my downstairs regions), as he slid a finger slowly inside. It was getting a lot easier for him to do that again; since we’d gotten back together I’d been getting a lot more- _hem_ \- exercise, which made things a lot more flexible down there. “Fuckin’ perfect,” he murmured, leaning in to set his tongue and lips to me, tasting me at the source. I laid my head back and sighed long, loud (as far as sighs go.) I placed a hand on the back of his head, gently nudging him forward. He didn’t need much encouragement; stroking inside with his tongue, nose nudging up against my clit. He made a small, perfect noise, and I moaned quietly as he replaced the finger inside of me and added a second, rubbing on all the right places inside, nipping at the crease of my thigh and pressing soft kisses along my hipbone.

“Jeff,” I murmured, tugging on the slightly-longer hair on the back of his head, shuddering with the squeeze of my muscles and letting loose a small moan, my cheeks probably flooding with color in a warning of my oncoming climax.

Jeff just dropped one more scratchy kiss on my pelvis and dipped his head to wrap his lips carefully around the tiny bud of my clit- the gentle pull made my toes curl, and moments later I was coming, my fingers curling into the sheets, my head thrown off to one side and my eyes softly closed, lips parted as I panted softly through it.

“Yeah, there you go,” Jeff murmured, still fingering slowly, thumb gently touching my clit through the squeezing. “Let it flow.” His free hand stroked, open-palm, across the length of my pelvis. “Beautiful,” he whispered, leaning down to kiss me. He tasted like me, on the lips and the tongue, and his beard was wet. “God, I love you so damn much.”

I shot him a soft, half-smile when I opened my eyes again. “Don’t tell me you finished already.”

He shifted on the mattress, sucking in a breath- “Well, I’d hate to disappoint. I can’t say for my stamina, though. After looking at that, well…” he stroked a hand along my side, pressing me down into the mattress with his own weight. “Any guy would take a hit from that.”

“Oh, flattery will get you…” I rolled us sideways, kissing him. “Somewhere, I admit.” I leaned our foreheads together, closed my eyes and smiled.

“You’re not gonna do the…the thing, are you?” he asked me, softly, as my hand trailed down over his chest. Had it tightened up since we were last together? I was feeling more muscle tone than I remembered, though the little pudge in his belly was still there.

“Do you want me to?” I replied, following the happy trail down his stomach and trailing my fingers lightly over his pelvis. He had an almost shy look when I caught his eye, gnawing on his lip like he wanted to say yes but wasn’t quite sure how.

I let my eyes go black- he jumped a little when the connection was made, but then he relaxed into it, closing his eyes and panting softly when I wrapped my hand around his dick. Silently, we shared the connection, letting the feelings take us over and swirl between us like waves from one shore to another- his pleasure became mine, and vice versa, and he didn’t need to grab onto my forearm and bite his lip to tell me he was coming. He moaned softly, shuddering as he spilt onto my hand, and lay there breathing heavily after. I nuzzled in close, and he lifted an arm to accommodate me, dropping a kiss to my forehead, face already splitting into the post-coital grin.

“Now that’s the kind of wake-up call I could get used to,” he mumbled, into my hair. I chuckled, but it was only a few moments before EDI came in over the intercom: “ _Jeff. Your presence is required to dock at the Citadel._ ”

Jeff sighed, heavily. “Already? Come on, we didn’t even get to cuddle.”

“ _May I suggest cuddling later? The commander has declared shore leave. The group at Arrae will be disembarking here for transport to the Crucible station. There will be time. Meanwhile, your presence is required to dock.”_

“Yeah, yeah, I’m going,” he muttered, reluctantly sliding off of the bed and going for his uniform, so hastily stripped off the night before. “Cool your circuits.”

“Thanks, EDI,” I said to the ceiling, unable to help my grin. “He’ll be along in a moment.”

“ _Thank you, Glenn,_ ” she said, sounding pleased. “ _And good morning._ ”

“Was better _before_ it was interrupted,” Jeff muttered, sticking his hat on over his bedhead. He needed a haircut, come to think of it, his hair was almost touching his ears. I kind of liked it, though, more to hang on to. He looked to me as he moved for the door, and I shifted to cover myself with the blankets. “You coming?”

“I believe I already have,” I said, smirking.

He halted, gave me a humoring look. “Okay. You gonna come visit your poor deprived boyfriend on the bridge?”

“I’ve got biotics practice,” I told him, sitting up and letting my shoulders cave a little. “You go on. I’ll come by later.”

“Oh, yeah. That was Kaidan’s idea, right?” he muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like _damn Canadians,_ and said, “Funny how _he_ gets to get all up in _his_ boyfriend’s business while this is going on.”

“Yeah, well, we’ll also be, y’know, _beating the tar out of each other,_ ” I said, cocking my eyebrow at him. He sucked in a breath, eyes narrowing as he looked off to the side. “Yeah, true.” He looked to me then, making a few popping noises before asking, “Meet you later on the Commons? Lunch? Other things?”

I smiled, blew him a kiss. “I’ll be there.”

“Can do, babe,” he said, catching it and moving out the door, down the CIC.

I sat in the bed a moment more, then sighed happily and got to my feet, swaying a moment before finding my balance and padding over to where I kept my clothes. I shrugged into an old tank and some baggy shorts before tying my hair back and heading down to the shuttle bay.

As we had discussed before, an area had been cleared for us all to use. Cortez was over at his terminal, and waved as I passed. Already gathered in our makeshift ring were John, Pax, Kaidan, and Liara, all dressed similarly, along with a brooding Javik (although I wonder if I even need mention the adverb anymore), and Rhaella watching meanwhile atop a crate.

“You’re late, XO,” Pax called.

“Shut up, Science Officer,” I fired back, stepping into the ring. “The XO was getting her wham bam and thank you ma’am in for the morning.”

John winced. “That was…something I could have lived without.”

“Come on, you pansies, we’re all adults here,” I rolled my eyes, jogging my shoulders to loosen up.

Javik sniffed. “In the Empire, public discussion of _private_ life was punishable by-”

“-death?” Liara guessed.

Javik nearly _smirked_ at her. “Removal of the tongue.”

I snorted, stretching down to my toes. “Well, I’m rather attached to my tongue. And Jeff’s.”

Paxton groaned. “ _Enough_ , XO.”

“Oh, please. Does that mean I get to assign you to swab the decks the next time you run your mouth about your hunky turian-”

“Geez, guys!” Rhaella chipped in from her post atop the block, hunched somewhat over her growing belly. “Just start knocking each other around already. This is like being back in high school again.”

“There’s a lesson to be learned there,” Kaidan cut in, drily (he did many things drily, as I’d learned, and now that the whole distrust thing was behind us I was starting to warm up to him.) “We don’t ever grow up; we just get bigger.”

Rhaella sighed. I shrugged. “Kid’s got a point. Who’s first?”

“Well,” Kaidan spoke. “The reason I came up with this idea is the concept that we might have unique biotic abilities that we might be able to share. Teach each other, learn, et cetera.” He looked about the group. “Like, uh, XO.” He strayed away from ‘ma’am’ at the last second. “I’ve never seen anyone else do the…jump thing you do.”

I blinked, and then rubbed at the base of my neck. “Yeah, sorry. Can’t teach that one. It requires a special amp that I stole from a traitorous asari Spectre.”

The others (save Liara) gaped at me. I shrugged. “And it took a lot of practice. It was about six months before I could do it without a nosebleed, and with any actual coordination.” I put up a hand. “I did learn something from the old team here, though. The move’s not too complicated- to execute it you’re first gonna need to pick up your target-” I demonstrated, picking up an empty box. “-and you let ‘em hang for a moment, almost like a stasis field- but then you slam ‘em on the ground.” I yanked the box down suddenly, and the others jumped as it split on the floor, splintering into pieces and bouncing up again into the air. I quickly pulled the pieces back to land into a small pile. “That’s bones shattered, tendons crushed, skull exploding like an overripe melon.” I crossed my arms, smirking.

Kaidan blinked. He looked around at the others.

John just shrugged. “I just know the basics. Y’know; warp, pull, throw, barrier.”

Liara put her hands on her hips. “I can produce a stasis field. And a singularity. Glenn learned in the six months we worked together.”

Pax shrugged. “I learned the cover-breaking shockwave, but that’s about all that’s special for me.”

Kaidan blinked. “I can reave,” he said, finally.

“Reave?” I raised an eyebrow. “Interesting. I only ever saw that on a thousand-year old asari justicar. The fact that you’ve figured that out’s pretty incredible.” Kaidan just nodded, smiling a little at the recognition, and I then turned to my right, cocking an eyebrow at Javik, who was still in his armor (come to think of it, had I ever seen him without?) “What about you, Javik?”

Javik shrugged, his arms staying where they were, tightly folded across his chest. “Your cycle has certainly come up with an interesting array of moves. Many of them- like the one you just demonstrated- are focused on the physical.” He extended a hand, and a wash of green biotics lifted the pieces of the shattered box and made them into a neat pile. He let it go, and then looked back to me, four brows suddenly furrowing. “Biotics in my time were a mental focus.” Lightning-quick, a three-fingered hand whipped up at me, and lifted me suddenly into the air, my every nerve screaming with pain. _Our enemies were incapacitated from the inside out;_ I heard his flanging voice echoing off the insides of my skull, vibrating in my eardrums-

In a sudden moment of clarity I saw through his eyes, at the tendril of green biotics connecting us, swirling around me like a containment sphere. In that moment, my sense of womanly independence, my down-with-the-patriarchy, _no, you move_ , pushed suddenly back on this transgression. The shock flew all along the rope connecting us, and suddenly I was the one lifting the prothean up into the air, holding him there for just a moment and then dropping him suddenly to the ground, chest heaving, skin slicked over with sweat and my fists balled by my sides.

My mouth, twisted into a snarl, and my eyes, narrowed to a point of danger, fixed on him as he got slowly to his feet.

“Don’t you _ever_ do that to me again,” I spat out at him, fuming. “Or I will put you into the fucking ground.”

“You think that no one will ever try to reach into your mind?” he challenged me. “Furthermore, do you think that they will give you warning?” He blinked, four yellow eyes. “You have just learned the dark channel. When one enemy dies, the connection will seek the next. Use it against those who would target you.”

“And why me?” I shot back. “Why?”

His mouth curled- almost a sneer, but more like he sought to explain to me something he figured I would find delicate. Had everyone forgotten I’d grown up in the Detroit of the Milky Way galaxy? “Opponents of your…propensity…were often targets. Even my own people would seek first to defeat the women of the conquered. Rout them…humiliate them. Even in this cycle I see that this tactic in many ways has not changed.”

I stalked across the ring to him. “I’m fully aware, Javik. I’m also aware that the last man that tried that ended up with a broken neck.”

“You do not know what enemies are in your future,” he said.

“I know what kind of person I am, Javik,” I said, lowly, nose to six nostrils. “And I understand what kind of world I live in. I don’t need you coddling me.”

“I am not coddling you,” he retorted, with a touch of anger.

“The hell you are,” I seethed, “You think I’m too weak to protect myself against those people, so you do it for me. You’re just as disgusting as they are.”

“At least I am not violating you.”

“Yes you are. You might not be violating my body, but you’re violating the construct of my independence. Don’t talk to me about ‘at least I’m not raping you’. Get out of the past, Javik. The problems for your cycle might still be around, but it doesn’t mean I’m gonna put up with your shit. Grow the fuck up, get your head into this _primitive_ cycle, and let the past rest.” I turned tail and stormed back out towards the lift. “ _Well, that went well,_ ” I heard Kaidan say, as I left, punched a button, and stood there stewing as I waited for the lift doors to close.

Liara hurried in beside me as the doors closed.

A moment passed, as we moved up. “Are you all right?” she asked me.

“Yeah,” I sighed. “Yeah, pissed, but fine. He just shook my pain receptors a bit.”

She sighed. “You know that’s not what I meant.”

I gave her a narrow-eyed glance from the side.

“I may be young for an asari,” she said, turning to me as I looked away and folded my arms, scowling. “But I am still almost eighty years older than you. Perhaps I have learned…even if men have those perceptions, it does not make them irredeemable. They just…have a lot to learn.” She sighed, softly. “As do we all.”

I didn’t reply, just scowled harder at the floor.

“I think he’s very angry…about the Reapers, about his entire race…he _is_ the only one left. Perhaps he has been angry his whole life. And…he is, comparably, young. He’s barely an adult by Prothean standards.” She looked to me. “He is angry. But so are a lot of people. And I suspect he does care, he just…doesn’t know how to show it. He needs to learn, but he needs that understanding and help too. He’s only too proud to ask for it.”

I blinked, looking tentatively sideways at her, cocking an eyebrow.

“Dark channel is a move only possible for those who have been touched by a Prothean cipher,” she told me finally. “He’s also taught you reave, by extent.”

She left the lift as it dinged, announcing its arrival on the crew decks. I sighed gustily, and went after her, veering off for the showers.

When I arrived later on the bridge, toweling off my hair, Jeff cocked his eyebrow up at me. “So, uh, scuttlebutt says Javik pissed you off.”

“Great, you too?” I gritted, rolling my eyes.

“No, I just want to know how he didn’t end up picking his teeth off the floor,” he replied. “Or eyes. I hear he’s got plenty of those.”

“You haven’t looked at him?”

“Well, I mean, guy’s kind of a recluse.” He shrugged. “Also, I have a feeling that if I start looking, I’m not going to be able to look _away._ And then it’d turn into some weird staring contest. For all I know, that could be some Prothean challenge. Like…chimps, or something.”

“Just don’t let him hear you say that,” I said, folding my arms and smirking down at him.

“Yeah, I’m already screwed, with his Vulcan mind-meld,” Jeff muttered, opening up the channel for docking control.

I sighed, looking ahead at the approaching cloud of purple dust. “Well, he was nice enough to teach me his Prothean soulsucker move.”

“Ah, great,” Jeff deadpanned, “You really needed one of those.” His hands skittered across the flight panels, and we began to bank down into the Citadel’s arms.

Distracted, I mused, “You remember the first time I came here?”

“Yeah,” he snorted, “Never mind the big ol’ space station, you couldn’t get over the size of the _Destiny Ascension._ ” I tugged reprimandingly on his ear, watching the asari dreadnought float by our starboard side window. “ _Ow._ ”

I let him go, watched him pout and rub at the sore spot. I let him speak with the docking operator, and leaned on the back of his chair as he brought us in.

“You weren’t the first one to say that, you know,” he remarked, as our engines quieted and the whirring of the extending airlock took its place. “That was all Ashley could look at when we pulled in here after Eden Prime.” He paused, then, a wistful look of something like fondness setting in. Something tripped in my brain, and I looked out the window, frowning slightly. “I don’t think she even noticed anything else until they met Udina.” He blew a quick breath, like a sad laugh. “According to Paxton-”

“‘And that’s why I hate politicians’?” I said, shortly.

Jeff blinked up at me, eyes big and green. “Well, actually…yeah.”

“Paxton blew a hole yea big in the councilor when we caught up with him. That was her only comment.”

Jeff paused to digest that information, then tapped out of the interface, spinning his chair around to look at me fully, eyes popping momentarily. “That the new uniform?” he questioned, after a long pause, staring appreciatively.

“It is,” I said, smiling slightly, shifting from one foot to the other.

“Certainly makes _me_ stand at attention,” he murmured, hauling himself to his feet, taking my hands and standing on toe to give me a kiss.

“Yes, and- don’t fall over on me here- it’s also for official Alliance duty,” I remarked, letting go of his hands, backstepping.

“Well,” he smiled, sheepish. “Yeah, that too.” He blinked, and jerked his head towards the airlock. “You wanna get on out there? I’ll be out after I clear our numbers with Charlie. Meet me at Apollo’s, on the Presidium?”

“Sure,” I conceded, with a soft smile, then sighing, brushing off my uniform, and grinned back at the bridge.

Jeff smiled, throwing me a lazy salute. “Go get ‘em, XO.”

“Yeah,” I scoffed, tugging on my hat and adjusting my collar, where the single gold stripe of a lieutenant commander showed. “Maybe now that I’m dressed the part, Ken’ll think twice about starting fights with idiots in Purgatory who talk shit about the _Normandy_.”

Jeff tilted his head, narrowing his eyes. “Unlikely.”

“Yeah, if not because you’d still do it,” I sighed, and headed out onto the docks.

As I made my way out into the hangar, I caught sight of the back of Diana Allers, interviewing the pack of Cerberus expatriates- many of them were gathered down by the seating area, but a few- including Jacob, Brynn, and Colin’s family- were in front of the little floating camera. “-a little tense for a while, but thanks to Commander Shepard and her team, we all made it out all right,” Dr. Cole finished, as I drew closer to the group.

“And was it true that you worked before with the commander?” Allers turned to Jacob.

“We have, yes,” Jacob said, concisely, and Allers then changed the subject, asked instead, “So you’re the spokesperson for these people? They look to you for your protection?”

And then Jacob smiled. “It’s a tough job, but we’re all like family. I wouldn’t trade it for the world. Hopefully, with the Alliance’s help, we’ll find a place to settle down a bit and assist the war effort.”

“And what skills may you have to offer to the war effort?” Allers queried- and before anyone had the chance to say the c-word (classified), Colin piped up and said, “I fly shuttles!”

“Do you?” Allers bent over to his level. “And you are…”

“Colin Michaels,” he said, proudly. “I flew the escape shuttle out with…” he trailed off, catching sight of me. “There she is!” he hurried out, grabbed my hand and pulled me into frame.

“And arriving on the scene, we have Lieutenant Commander Glenn of the SSV _Normandy_ ,” Allers said, as Colin led me into the limelight. “Sources say that you were instrumental in brokering turian-krogan alliance- and now, you’re serving as Commander Shepard’s executive officer. In this war of attrition, you seem to have done fairly well for yourself.”

 _Is that conspiracy theory I hear, Allers?_ Without hesitating, I added more Queen’s English into my accent than should be allowed, and spoke, “Well, it’s as my countrymen said in the age of sail, Ms. Allers. The officers toasted to short wars and quick promotions.” The pack behind me laughed. “And I’m doing all within my power to make this a short war. It’s not easy, by any means, but the reports coming in are saying that the krogan troops are pushing back Reaper forces on Palaven. People are banding together to fight, I mean, I’m friends with a bloody Scotsman, what can’t we do?” More laughter. I grinned, and just to dispel any more suspicion, I leaned down and picked Colin up to sit him on my shoulder. “And the Reapers don’t have people like Colin. There’s not a boy anywhere that wouldn’t tear up the world to save his mummy.” I patted Colin’s knee, and sat him down. “The Reapers run on code. It’s not like DNA; it’s finite, controllable, repeatable. It doesn’t change and evolve like ours does. They are all the same- but there’s no such thing as an ordinary one of us. That’s what we have over them. That’s our saving grace.” Diana nodded, then turned to her camera. “Commander Glenn, and the expatriates of Arrae. Until next time, I’m Diana Allers, and this is Battlespace. Stay strong.” The camera flickered off, and the group behind me started to disperse. I felt a tug on my leg, and looked down to see Colin, holding out a permanent marker and a model of UT-47. I took it from him, scrawled out my signature onto the side, and gave it back to him, watching as he beamed and bounded back towards the other kids.

“I’m impressed, Commander,” Allers spoke, as she folded up her equipment. “People back home are going to think I look like a suspicious idiot.”

I lifted an eyebrow. “You don’t seem troubled.”

“People don’t think much of reporters,” she told me, shrewdly. “They figure all you need is a pretty face and a typed list of questions- and I prefer to keep it that way. No one expects any sense from the ditz waggling her ass for extra ratings.” She picked up the briefcase her camera fit into. “I hope you’re not too touchy about that. I’m not trying to do a smear job,” her face creased in disgust. “Not like that Westerlund bitch. The people needed to be sure of who you were- I knew you would be able to play the camera.” She paused, and looked at me thoughtfully. “The accent was a nice touch.”

“You knew I could, eh?” I folded my arms, tilting my head.

“Anyone who got the turians and the krogan to work together has to be a good talker,” she nodded her head at the airlock. “Anyway. I should get out of this awful dress. And edit this segment to send it out. Maybe we can work together again in the future.” She headed off, back into the ship, and I “hmm-ed” thoughtfully before turning for the rapid transit.

As I started to program it for the Presidium Commons, a hand stretched out into my line of sight, taking hold of my wrist. Instinctively, I struck the perpetrator in the funny bone, and dropped into a fighting stance, corona crackling around me before I noticed who it was. “You’re Bray.”

The batarian, picking himself up off the ground and rubbing at his elbow, had been one of Aria T’Loak’s cronies back on Omega, usually stuck guarding the short, dingy passageway between the upper and lower halves of Afterlife.

“Aria warned me you’d remember,” he gritted at me. “And that your reflexes were still good.”

“After all the crap you gave me over Forvan? I was about to make my first murder into a double feature,” I muttered, rubbing my knuckles. Punching batarians hurt; I’d forgotten how much.

“So it _is_ you, then,” he looked me over now, smug, with an air of carnal interest that seemed to come in every one of those bastards I met. “Glenn, great broker of Omega. And me, without my autograph book.” He looked scathingly over at the group of children gathered a ways away, gathered in awe around Colin’s model Kodiak.

“Cut the crap,” I said, stepping in to block his view, “Where’s Aria?”

Emasculated, he scowled and beckoned me off into one of the car lots. We stopped at an edge, and I looked at him, shrugging as if to ask _what now_?

A skycar lifted suddenly up into our vicinity, painted dark gold. The cover popped, revealing a batarian driver, and Aria T’Loak, sitting easily in the backseat. “Glenn,” she said, and leveled her chin at the seat beside her.

“Aria,” I replied, as Bray clambered into the front, and I stepped into the back next to the asari. “How dramatic.”

“There are too many eyes and ears in Purgatory,” she said. The top closed, and the car whirred off.

“I assume this is about retaking Omega?” I posed. “I did get that intel just for you, you know.”

She blinked straight ahead of her. “This is about _your_ war, Glenn.”

I pressed my mouth into a thin line to avoid sighing. “Make this quick. I have a date.”

“With your rickety helmsman?” she prodded, scanning me for a reaction.

I nodded evenly. “Yes.”

Aria turned back ahead. “Cerberus holding the Terminus has seriously bolstered their mobility,” she said. “Ever since they took over Omega they’ve been all over the galaxy.” She turned, noting with slight distaste the swoop-and-stars of the Alliance navy on my arm. “Surely the Alliance has noticed.”

“So what’s your plan?” I asked her.

She pulled out a datapad, began reading figures. “Kick them out. I’ve amassed a fleet of merc ships, we’re going to punch through their lines and take the station back.” She turned to another page, handed it to me. “I have it all- ships, mercs, a mountain of eezo- it’s all yours, _if_ you help me.”

I nodded at the impressive incentives, handing the PDA back. “So what’s the catch?”

Aria took it, scowled faintly, and looked back ahead. “I have…objections, to some of the company you keep. You’ll have to leave the _Normandy_ behind. My fleet is hiding out in the nebula, Bray will give you coordinates. You can rendezvous with us there, but after that you’ll be boarding my ship, and we’ll set a course straight for the Sahrabarik system.” The car pulled to a sudden stop, and the top popped to reveal the Commons rapid transit stop. “I suppose I _could_ say I want you all to myself.”

I climbed from the car, and Bray did as well. The gold car closed up and sped away.

Bray watched her go, then brought up his omni-tool. Mine pinged moments later, and I brought it up to look at the coordinates. “I wouldn’t keep her waiting,” he said, simply, and headed away for the elevator.

As the doors opened and Bray pushed inside, another figure came out. Jeff paused to watch the batarian a moment, frowning, then looked up ahead to see me. “Old friend of yours?” he questioned, walking up to me.

“Sort of,” I sighed. I put on a smile then, not too hard with him standing in front of me, and said, “Anyway.”

“Anyway,” he repeated, dragging out the first syllable. “I apparently missed your birthday.”

I blinked, adjusting to the sudden segway. “Yeah. And?”

“And I likewise didn’t get you anything- so, being the _ex_ cellent and adoring boyfriend that I am, I’m going to make up for it now and ask you- what do you want?” he beamed at me, and I had to keep from giggling. “Jeff, I’m kind of new to this whole ‘want’ business. Christmas on Omega was an exchanging of necessities. Birthdays were just another year you’d survived.”

“Ugh, ease up there, Grimbo,” he made a face of distaste, took my hands and stretched up briefly to smooch me right on my scarred side. “Look around. Got to be something. I’m sure you’ll find your shopping drive, if you look _deeeeep_ inside yourself.” Briefly, he squeezed my hands. “Come on. What’s catching your eye?”

“Besides this wisecracking gentleman in front of me?” I quipped, raising my eyebrow.

He chuckled, looking off to the side. “Flattery will get you…somewhere, I’ll admit.” He let go of one hand, squeezed the other, and moved around to stand by my side. “Here, just…walk with me. Look around, tell me if you see something.”

A few moments passed. “I see…an elcor,” I said.

“You want an elcor?” he frowned up at me, perhaps wondering what I’d been smoking.

“No,” I said, primly (which was really only a matter of speaking, with me.) “You told me to say if I’d seen anything, I saw an elcor, I told you.”

“Okay, wise ass,” he gave me a face, and looked back ahead, smile betraying him. “Tell me if you see something you _like_.”

I dropped a hand to give his rear a brief squeeze. “I’ve been looking at it for the past hour.”

His smile grew wider, and he slid my arm into his as we kept walking.

It was a few more minutes before I halted, a brief glint having caught my eye at what happened to be a jewelry case.

Jeff looked, and emitted a brief chuckle: “Oh, see, my old dad always warned me, they go straight for the jewelry store-”

I hushed him, stepping up closer and pointing out what I had seen. “Look at this one.”

The shopkeeper, an old man with a white beard, moved up to get a look. “You’ve got a good eye, miss,” he told me, “That was one of the last ones to make it off of Earth- it’s a blue topaz- they named it for the waters off of France, ‘Normandy Blue’.”

Jeff and I shared a meaningful look.

The storekeeper brought the case up from inside the glass. “Would you like it sized?”

I considered it, then I shook my head. “No. It’s a little early for that, I think.”

“You know time is short these days…” he suggested.

I smiled slightly, straightened up. “It’s not going to be the last time.”

As we moved off, and Jeff took my hand again, I spoke, “How about lunch? I’m feeling lunch.”

“Thought you’d never ask,” he said, “After you.”

A few moments later we were seated at Apollo’s, looking over the menus. “So, earlier,” he ventured. “That batarian guy you said you’d talked to…what was that about?” his demeanor suggested that he already knew, and that he was just trying to quietly learn the whole of it.

“Omega,” I said, and he nodded. “Aria got what she needed from the files I sent her on Arrae. And now she wants my help taking it back.” I put the datapad serving as the menu down on the tabletop.

“Well…I mean, you and I talked about this. And you _know_ the commander, I’m sure that we’ll be able to divert to this. We’ve got nothing else pressing.”

I sighed, looking down at my folded hands. “There’s a catch.”

His brows knitted, concerned, trying to look up at me from under the visor of my duty cover. “What’s that?”

I hesitated a moment. “I’d have to go alone.”

Jeff blinked. “Absolutely not,” he said, brows furrowing violently.

“Jeff, do you seriously think you’re going to stop me?”

“I know how I _feel_ about it,” he pushed back. “I’ve…” his squeezed his eyes shut, opened them again, shook his head, mouth open as he searched for what to say. “The last time…”

“I came out _alive_ ,” I finished  for him.

“That was when you had your- _our_ team watching your back,” he looked to the side, scowling. “And I wasn’t talking about that.”

I frowned. “If it wasn’t the Collector Base, then what is it?”

He hesitated in answering, and when he did he closed his eyes- tightly, almost in pain. “Virmire.”

I blinked. “Virmire,” I repeated, into the silence. “I’m afraid…I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

“Yeah,” he said, regretfully, almost bitterly. “You don’t understand because…because I don’t talk about it.” he shook his head. “I’m sure you understand how it happened. Read the reports and everything. Alenko and the salarian team got picked up…Williams died groundside guarding the nuke.”

I nodded, slowly, and then more assuredly. “Yes, but…what does this have to do with anything? How is that the…‘last time’?” I looked to him for clarity, but still he refused to meet my eyes.

“Most people don’t…” he started, then sighed. “I don’t think anybody knows. When I…when we were tracking down Saren. Back on the SR-1. I…well, I guess I don’t…I mean, nothing ever _happened_ but I think…I think that…”

“Jeff,” I said, softly, breaking his string of babble.

He sighed, bowed his head, and looked down at his hands, on the table. “I…I had kind of a thing for Ash, okay? And it was…it was more than a ‘thing’. You know what happens to me when I decide to like someone. Hell…love them.”

For a moment, I had to sit there in a stunned silence. “You never said anything before-”

“That’s because there’s nobody alive who really knows,” he said. “And…because I…well, honestly sometimes I feel like I’m still not over it. It was only two years ago, maybe going on three now.” He shook his head. “I…I felt some days like I was imagining it, like I was at the other end of another hopeless crush, but…sometimes, you know, she’d say something or look at me a certain way and I’d have been this damn close to giving it up, and just like that I’d have too much hope all over again.” He shook his head, closed his eyes and sighed shakily. “And then…and then Virmire rolls around and I’ve had this bad feeling in the pit of my stomach all day, and the call comes in that we’re picking up Kirrahe’s wet squad and Alenko on the roofs, and…” he stopped abruptly, and took a long moment to compose himself. “I…I didn’t get to say goodbye. Never got to tell her…the truth, even if it would have ended badly. And all I could think about were the ways I could have gotten them both. Ways I might have been able to keep them alive. I’m supposed to be the best damn pilot the Alliance has to offer, and instead I got to hand her posthumous medals to her sisters.” He scrubbed at his forehead. “And then a couple months later we lose the commander, and that’s my fault too. I spent two years in a…in a _coma_. Some days I didn’t even feel. Other days, I’d just drink until I didn’t. The Alliance grounded me, and I’d hit rock bottom when my dad dragged me off my ass and took me back to Tiptree to pull myself together. Couple weeks later Cerberus found me, told me what they were doing. And you know how it goes from there.” He shook his head. “Eventually, I was able to function normally again. I had the _Normandy_ back, I had some of the old faces…” he trailed off. Then, finally, he raised his eyes to mine. “In the end I really don’t regret anything, because I met you.” He covered his hands with mine. “You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I _love_ you like I’ve loved no one else. But I _can’t_ lose you.” His hands squeezed mine. “I…I have this bad feeling again, and I can’t lose someone this time. I barely got through just being apart from you. I…I can’t go through that, never seeing you again.”

I lowered my eyes, and sighed. “Look, I’ll…I’ll discuss this with the rest of the crew later. We’ll see how that plays out.” He nodded at me, continued to hold my hand, even for a long time after, and whenever he thought I didn’t notice he had a deeply troubled look on his face, one I knew now perhaps too well.


	3. Rebuttals, or, the Downside to Having Friends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I actually made a playlist for this one! I made one for A Matter of Pride, too, which I'll post with part 2, but the Omega one is as follows:
> 
>  
> 
>    
> ...and yes, Take It Back has become the anthem for Omega. So sue me, the epic guitar has won me over.

“Absolutely _not_.” John’s hands came down hard on the table. “We’re not sending any of our own- much less our XO- alone into Cerberus-controlled territory. That’s too big of a risk, and it’s one we can’t be willing to take.”

“I wouldn’t be alone, you know,” I put in, dry. “Aria’s coming too.”

“Great, that just makes me feel a whole lot better,” he huffed, and returned to his pacing.

“Much as it pains me to say, I think he has a point,” sighed Paxton.

“Don’t agree with me, Pax, it makes me very uncomfortable,” muttered John, causing her to shoot him a look.

“Nobody’s going _any_ where,” Charlie cut everyone else off, in her Air of Finality voice, with a hint of an irritated edge more prevalent these days. “Especially not alone. Especially not flanked by _pirates_.”

“This is a tactically advantageous operation,” I pressed. “It gets rid of Cerberus’ foothold in the Terminus, it wins us allies, and a whole pile of resources for the Crucible that we frankly can’t afford to turn down.”

“Mercenaries,” Kaidan said, doubtfully. “Only really loyal to the highest bidder, though.”

“Precisely,” said Charlie, looking gratefully at him.

I gave her the _are you mad_ face, shrugged, pointed out, “Most are smart enough to know that if we don’t beat the Reapers, they won’t be getting any more paychecks.”

“That’s still making a generalization. I’m sure there are others that I’d rather not have watching our people’s backs.”

I rolled my eyes, heaving a heavy sigh. “Then they’re fools, you should eat them,” I deadpanned, waving a hand in Javik’s general direction.

“Enough!” Charlie finally snapped. “Stand down, Commander. We’ve lost enough of this crew already.”

 _Damn, way to guilt trip,_ I thought bitterly, as the silence closed in around us. I rapped my fingers on the tabletop of the conference room, as our commander scrubbed wearily at her temples. “We’re done here,” she said finally. “You’re all free to go.” I was first out the door, stepping through the scanner and out onto the CIC, disheartened but not surprised with the results.

Rhaella was waiting for me out by Traynor’s message terminal- perhaps the two had been chatting, but Traynor stood up straight and looked busy when I approached. The XO’s aura, I called it. Everyone seemed more apt to looking busy when I was around- except for Ken. Ken gave no fucks, as per usual.

“What were you guys talking about in there?” she asked me, following me back to my room. “Next big move?”

“I wish,” I sighed. “I had an operation proposed- high risk, but good rewards.” I sat on the bed, sighed, and fixed my hair. “Got shot down. Skipper doesn’t like the terms and conditions.”

Rhaella, having long learned not to pry into matters that would earn the c-word, just sat down next to me and waited for me to continue.

“It wasn’t just about tactics or strategy, either,” I sighed, finally, leaning over and hanging my head between my elbows. “This would be a bit of…closure. You know about my past. Everything that happened to me…well.” I got up, leaned over the small basin in the corner at the little mirror on the wall. “Let’s just say I haven’t faced it all. Inside, maybe I have. But…I still haven’t closed the door, on that part in my life. This mission…would have been an opportunity to do so.”

Rhaella sat quiet for a while. She cast her eyes at the ceiling, and suddenly I understood. “EDI,” I said, “Lockdown protocol Alpha One, local code eight-one-nine-two, authorization key Echo-six-one.”

Instantly, the whole place went silent, and dark. The door locked red, and all surveillance in the room died off. I sat down by her, raised my eyebrow. “What are you thinking, kid?”

She tucked her hands around her rounding belly, and puffed her cheeks. “Well…” she said. “Have you thought about maybe just…y’know, going?”

I gaped at her. “Are you insane?” I finally blurted, standing and pacing agitatedly. “This…this isn’t sneaking out to the Varrencage concert, this is a jaunt to the _Terminus_. I could be court-martialed for this kind of shit. In fact, I _will,_ if I do that.”

“Unless you succeed,” she crossed her arms. “Isn’t that how it works? I mean, if people got court-martialed for everything they weren’t supposed to do then Captain Kirk would never have made it.”

I halted, and then turned to look at her. “Did you just make a Star Trek reference at me?”

She nodded slowly. “Yeah…”

I sat down and hugged her close to me. “I knew this day would come. One day you would show you were truly related to me. I just _knew_ it.”

“Need a mop for the sarcasm?” she deadpanned, best she could with her face mashed into my chest. “It’s all over the floor.”

I let her go, frowning at her, and then the wall. “You do have a point,” I said. “The Alliance…Starfleet, whatever we’re calling it. They do tend to give out medals when a horrible job goes right.” I scowled, shook my head. “Can’t believe I’m seriously contemplating this.”

Rhaella stood suddenly up. “You’ll have to go dressed differently,” she told me, opening my drawers and rifling through them. “Wear something you haven’t worn in a while. Put your hair up differently. Do your makeup different. And at the transport terminal, impersonate someone else.”

I blinked at her, started to speak before pausing and finally posing the question, “You’ve…done this before?”

“No,” said Rhaella, turning her head to frown at me. “Of course not. What kind of teenager do you think I was?”

 _Right._ I strode up to my drawers, and opened the bottom drawer to pull out something I hadn’t touched in a long while- I came up with my leather jacket, black and red edged in silver-white, cut in the drell customary style. She gaped at it, and then looked to me. She can’t have _never_ seen it; but it had been nearly a month since I’d put it on. In the years before that, though, it had been my second skin.

It would do.

“Wait, you aren’t going now?” Rhaella asked, as I pulled out the old clothes I had worn on Omega and began to tug off my uniform, pulling my bun loose and shaking out my hair before pulling it back into a tight ponytail, displaying the shaved sides.

“I am,” I told her, yanking the tank top over my head and stepping into the baggy cargo pants, sitting on the edge of the bed to pull on my boots. “Before I change my mind.”

She was silent as I stood, pulled on the coat, slipped my fingers into the appropriated slots. I looked to her, blinked, and said, “I’ll be back in a few days. I should hope. Along with mercs, ships, and a mountain of eezo.” I stretched out a hand, faltered, and settled to rest it on her shoulder. “…don’t tell anyone where I’ve gone. And if they ask, I didn’t check with you before I left, I did it on my own. All right?”

She just nodded, slowly and wide-eyed, at me.

I paused, and then pressed my mouth thin together. “If Jeff…” I closed my eyes tight, shook my head. “If Joker asks you…alone…then…” I scrubbed a weary hand over my face. “Tell him that I’m coming back to him.” I moved across the room, pulled out a secure locker from beneath my bed, and gave it my retinal scan to open. Rhaella peeked over my shoulder as I pulled forth the contents.

“What’s that?” she asked.

“Locust SMG,” I told her, turning it over in my hand. “Gun that killed two presidents. I can’t risk going down to the armory and getting anything from there. This’ll have to do.” I straightened up, gave her one last look, and nodded. “I’ll be back soon.”

“Be careful,” she told me, frowning faintly.

“No promises,” I retorted, going for the door.

“Then remember that you have a niece I’d rather you met than be a story to,” she capped, folding her arms.

I froze, turned around, regarded her for a moment. In the end, I turned back to the door, and unlocked the security override.

The lights flickered back on suddenly. “ _Glenn_?” EDI sounded vaguely confused. “ _I seem to have experienced a loss of data in my archives._ _What happened_?”

“Nothing of note, EDI,” I told her, holstering the Locust. “Just a little malfunction. I fixed it.”

“ _I see._ ”

I stepped out the door, and hurried out along to the airlock. I thanked the gods that Jeff wasn’t at his station, and moved out of the gate, into the docking bay, and off to the rent-a-shuttle service. It took too long for my liking, and I kept glancing over my shoulder in constant fear of someone seeing me, but in the end I got out and away, plugged the coordinates Bray had sent me into the shuttle’s navigator and driven off and away into the nebula.


	4. Of Plans and First Contact with the Enemy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, folks, I finally played through Omega, and thus can now bring you the story in full! It shouldn't take too long from here on out, after which I will intermittently start A Matter of Pride Act II, and actually head back to A Matter of Trust to add in some additional content that didn't make it into the first cut. I'm feeling ready to dive back in to Mass Effect 2 lately, so I'll be writing a lot more missions and content into the story, as well as changing up some things, so be sure to visit periodically while I'm putting up new stuff.
> 
> I'm planning on including in the new content:  
> \- Illium: The Justicar  
> \- Mordin: Old Blood  
> \- Thane: Sins of the Father  
> \- Jack: Subject Zero  
> \- Grunt: Rite of Passage  
> \- Samara: The Ardat-Yakshi  
> \- Kasumi: Stealing Memory  
> \- Zaeed: The Price of Revenge  
> \- Reaper IFF
> 
> As well as edited/expanded content for:  
> \- Glenn's discovery about her father's work in Cerberus and Project Mentis  
> \- Glenn's relationship with Joker  
> \- Tali: Treason and the aftermath of the Collector attack on the Normandy
> 
> As well as missions I MIGHT include/am on the fence about:  
> \- Miranda: The Prodigal  
> \- Jacob: The Gift of Greatness  
> \- Legion: A House Divided  
> \- Garrus: Eye for an Eye  
> For the above, please sound off in the comments if you feel particularly strongly about seeing one or the other.
> 
> I hope you enjoy Omega, and that you're as excited for the new content in Trust that I am!
> 
> And of course, Bioware owns it all.

When my shuttle puttered into vicinity of the given coordinates, I was soon hailed by the Cerberus cruiser I saw hanging in the midst of the crowd of ships. I opened the HUD, cocked an eyebrow at the four eyes staring back at me. “So good to see you again,” I deadpanned, as Bray gave me a look. “It’s me, don’t shoot.”

“Move,” I heard, off-screen, and Bray was pushed out of frame and replaced by Aria T’Loak. “Interesting approach.”

“Well, my crew didn’t exactly approve of my leaving,” I said. “I had to…utilize other means of transportation.”

Aria smirked. Well, she got off on deception and lies, I knew that much. “Stand by and open your shuttle bay, I’m heading in.”

She nodded, and HUD flickered off as I steered the shuttle up into the bay, disembarked and shuffled my coat on my shoulders, picking up the Locust to attach it to my side and start walking. I followed the hallways up to the bridge, where people were moving quickly about from station to station. Aria herself stood in the middle, speaking to another asari over the comms. “We’re outnumbered nearly three ships to one, and most of ours are light transport, with limited firepower.”

“We’re not aiming to win a space battle, Jabel, just to punch through their line,” said Aria, her arms crossed, familiar scowl plastered on her face. She turned to watch my arrival, remarked, “The guest of honor has finally arrived. Now we can start.”

“You commandeered a Cerberus cruiser?” I queried, coming to stand beside her before the conn. “I assume you’re planning to infiltrate the blockade.”

“Yes,” said Aria, closing the comm link. “We get in close enough to break the line; then the fleet charges through the relay on my signal.”

I nodded, folding my arms and rubbing at my chin. “That’s bold. I like it.”

“What is it you humans say?” she questioned, moving over to the station where Bray sat, helping to start pilot the ship towards the relay (clumsily, I noted, but perhaps I was a tad spoiled on Joker’s flying.) “Balls? Like krogan, but half the merchandise.” She folded her arms, standing with her hip cocked. _Hey, I do that._

I scoffed. “Quad, balls, whatever. Don’t bother with them, they’re quite sensitive when you hit them. Grow a cunt, I always said. Those things can take a pounding.”

Aria chuckled. “That kind of talk goes a long way with me,” she said. “Keep it up, and we should get along just fine.”

I turned my head, pulled a smirk at her. “Don’t we always?”

The Cerberus frigate caught the eezo winds and shot off like a pebble from David’s slingshot, off to hit Goliath where it hurt. As we raced along in FTL, I curled my fingers at my sides, uncurled them. Already my heart was racing, as the monitors tracked our progress to the Sahrabarik system. _Off home,_ some distant part of me thought. Unconsciously, I brought up my hand to rub at my right shoulder, where the tattoo of the Greek letter Omega sat. One of my earliest additions to the collection, one of the oldest. A connection to someplace that held perhaps some of my memory, but my loyalty? No, no, if I had owed any loyalty to Omega it was gone now, replaced by the fierce flame for the _Normandy_ and her crew.

We jumped out of the relay- into the asteroid field, the station a mushroom-shaped silhouette highlighted in a red haze up ahead. I gritted my teeth, and looked to Aria when I felt her gaze. “Long time in coming back, isn’t it?”

“Almost…a year,” I replied, softly. “A long time.”

“I remember,” she said. “One moment a Shepard shows up for Mordin Solus, next one there’s another after Archangel, somebody hires Zaeed Massani and then a few weeks later, you’ve disappeared.” She sighed. “You didn’t even show up to say goodbye. I was…disappointed, you could say.”

I managed a tight chuckle, expressed in a short huff. “I think twice breaking the only rule of Omega is merit enough.” A moment, and then I shook my head. “Mordin’s dead.”

Aria was silent a moment. “Pity,” she said, finally. “I liked Mordin. A practical kind of salarian.”

I, too, was silent for a moment. “Yeah,” I punctuated, “Me too.”

A moment later, the HUD popped up with a Cerberus signature. “ _We don’t recognize your flight vector, cruiser. Identify yourself._ ”

Bray pulled up a pre-recorded message, and played it back.

“ _This is Captain Lentz. Run voice recognition Alpha 2-0-10. We took damage. Seeking repairs._ ”

“ _Recognition confirmed, Captain. Hold for approach authorization._ ”

I looked slowly to my side. “How did you get the captain to say that?” I questioned, already knowing the answer.

“The hard way,” said Aria, leaning over Bray’s chair. “Head for the command ship. Nice and slow.”

“Take it in as close as you can,” I murmured.

Then, a moment later, Aria: “Fire!”

The ship let loose its cannons, tearing into the dreadnought guarding the station.

“Signal the fleet through the relay,” Aria waved a hand, stepping back towards the tactical map.

“There’s an incoming signal,” a salarian spoke up.

Aria stopped, examining it with narrowed eyes. “It’s the general. Should be interesting- put him through.”

I followed Aria to the interface, watched as the form of a tall, menacing Slav materialize. “Aria,” said the man, dressed in Cerberus regale, in a thick Russian dialect. _The Russians, it’s always got to be the Russians._ “I knew this had to be you. You’ll never make it- call it off, now.”

Aria stepped back from the interface, crossing her arms. “You’re barking up the wrong tree, General, but maybe you can convince my partner…”

The general’s eyes turned to me, and his eyes went steely above the broken nose and the pointed goatee. “Commander Glenn. I’ve heard great things about you.”

“I doubt the Illusive Man thinks of me that highly,” I retorted, eyes narrowing. “I believe his exact words were… ‘disappointing growth record’? ‘Hoped for stronger biotics and greater meld potential’? Something like that.”

The general didn’t budge. “I do my own research, Commander. A pity you’re so opposed to Cerberus, that you left that circle. We all sabotage ourselves in nefarious ways…perhaps deep down, you fear success,” he said, stroking his goatee. “And clearly, Aria thinks seeing you will unsettle me. Now it’s my turn.” He looked back to Aria. “I see you’ve gone to the trouble of augmenting your ship with Silaris armoring. An exorbitant waste. I’ve made improvements to Omega’s outer defenses. My cannons will cut through you at will.”

I took a step forward, spoke. “Aria, I may be projecting the James Bond villian trope onto him, but he sounds fairly confident.”

“Yeah,” said Aria, shortly, her hackles dropping slightly. “He does.”

“So, again, I say- turn back,” he said.

And there they were again. Aria leaned forward, bracing on the railing. “Let’s see what you’ve got, Oleg,” she said, deadly soft. Then, sharply to Bray, “End transmission.”

Aria stood a moment, as the Omega schematics came up again. “That went well,” she remarked, then looked casually out over the bridge. “Set preset course. We’re ramming the station, everyone brace for impact.”

I reeled a moment, shook my head rapidly. “ _What_?”

“Omega’s kinetic barriers will keep my ships from landing; I equipped this ship with disruptors to take them out on impact,” she said, leaning on another chair, as crewmen began to rush about. “Don’t worry. We’ll probably survive the crash.”

I leaned heavily back on the UI. “Well, drop the bass and call me Skrillex,” I hissed, on an outgoing breath, scrubbing at my forehead.

Not a few moments later, the ship rocked with impact- then another, and another. “Shields gone!” called Bray, “All systems failing!”

“We can make it,” growled Aria.

I peered over the schematics, frowned, shook my head. “Aria, don’t be stupid, sound the evac!”

Aria slammed her fist against the UI. “Damn it, program escape pods for the station.” She turned for the halls.

“Let’s go!” I barked, turning to the bridge, waving everyone past. “Everyone out, there’s no time.”

The others took off on my tails, save one salarian that stayed too long and was struck by his exploding panel.

We reeled through the halls of the ship, dodging explosions, struggling to keep our footing as the hull rocked with impact of each cannon blast. I swung after Aria into an escape pod, buckled into the seat. “Guess that asshole really did upgrade Omega’s outer defenses,” she remarked.

“So it would seem,” I called back, as the doors slid shut and we were ejected from the side of the cruiser.

We flew through the vacuum, rocked on and off by the cannons of the ships trading fire, and the outer mounted guns on the station- then, at last, we were crashing through something so solid it had to be Omega.

The restraints popped up and released us- we were turned on our side, but I was closest to the door and best able to reach out and blow the hatch clean off with a biotic blast. I heard a Cerberus trooper outside groan, following the loud metallic _clang_ of impact.

I stood up straighter on the seat, whilst the others inside attempted to regain their bearings, pushed off into the air, and made my way down to the ground, using the patented Justicar Samara float.

I landed  on the ground, amid the troopers, and whipped immediately to punch straight up the sternum and into the neck, digging nuckles into the gorget and applying biotic force and pressure to rip into the jugular, spraying blood across my nose- I turned, added a few more assassinations to the Locust, and took the last one down with a throw straight into an explosive crate. Just one left.

I walked. No, I strode. Then I charged. I ripped right through the last Cerberus trooper, and I faced the station with shoulders squared, gun cocked and hot, and blood smeared across the bridge of my nose.

“I’m back, you fuckers.”


	5. Invasion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like my summary? ;) Ehehe. Anyway, have a new chapter, and enjoy! Remember, it's Bioware's. I haven't had any feedback on the new subject material for A Matter of Trust yet, so be sure to check that out in last chapter's note.

When I found cover, Aria soon slid in beside me, clutching her shotgun.

“What’s our next move?” I called, over the clamor of Cerberus troops before us. Those that had escaped with us in the pod had already been shot down.

“We need to get the blast doors open for my ships,” she replied. “The control center isn’t far from here, but we’ll have to fight our way there.” She ducked out of cover, and threw something that looked like a little biotic ball- it _exploded_ when it made contact, though, clearing the area like a grenade.

“Wicked,” I muttered.

“ _This_ is what I brought you for,” she told me, coming back. “Ground assault. You’re a good talker, you’re easy on the eyes, but in combat, what you say, goes.”

“Play to our strengths,” I acknowledged, popping a spent heat sink from the Locust ( _god_ , but was this a gorgeous gun.) “I like it.”

“So let’s get to it, then,” she said, eyes glimmering dangerously. “What’s the plan?”

“Plan?” I smirked at her. “What plan?”

I leaned out of cover and charged a pack of Cerberus troopers covering an engineer while he set up a turret- I scattered them amid yells of pain, flicked out my omni-blade and utterly destroyed the defense gun, rolling out of the way of the resulting explosion. I turned up onto my feet, discouraged oncoming assault troops with a dark channel that lifted them straight into the air, bellowing. My mind was suddenly full of their pain, before it was suddenly and violently snuffed out by another of Aria’s biotic blasts. The resulting tandem detonation knocked even me back, but I regained my balance quickly, turned it into a roll up into cover.

And just in time, too, because a huge _thunk_ announced an ATLAS mech dropping into the scene.

 _A different skill for a different enemy,_ I thought. I popped up from my shelter, deploying an incineration blast that knocked the plating clean off the mechanism- a few quick shots took the thing down in a mess of fire and machinery- nowhere near as spectacular as an exploding Harvester, but still fairly respectable, as explosions go.

“Jabel, how are my ships holding up?” Aria was speaking into her earpiece as I sprinted to the door, bypassing the lock.

“ _We’re holding our own_ ,” the asari replied. “ _Need to get the blast doors open soon. We can’t hold out for much longer._ ”

“We’re working on it,” said Aria. “Hang in there.” We sprinted into the command center, crowded with Cerberus forces. I leapt up onto a tabletop, sprinted across it and leapt off the top, into the middle of the pack, detonating my barrier with a vicious war cry and throwing them all violently back.

Aria blew out a few with her shotgun, yanking them with a unique pulling move I hadn’t seen before, and delivered a good biotic kick to the throat of the last one who tried to charge her from behind.

“The control panel is over there,” she pointed. I followed her direction to a holographic interface, found the control commands and hit the big red button for ‘open’.

The doors began to open. I stepped back, and looked to Aria. “Where to now?”

“The ships will be retreating into my bunker,” she said, dusting her hands off and moving towards me. “It’s on D-Deck; top-secret, fortified, virtually indestructible.” A sudden whirring caught my attention, and I turned to my right. “We’ll rendezvous with them there, and then the battle can truly start.”

My eyes finally pinpointed a security camera, zeroed in directly on us. I raised my SMG, shot a slug straight into the lens. It shattered in a shower of sparks, hissing and popping. Aria halted in her tracks, watching the thing for a moment.

“There’s a good chance the general knows where we’re headed,” I deadpanned.

Aria decisively crossed to the other side of the room. “Then we’ll just have to get there fast.”

“What are you doing?” I asked her, incredulous, as she felt up the wall.

“Letting you in on a secret,” she replied, finding a crack and pulling on it to expose a panel. “Down the ladder, go.”

Since I couldn’t see any better alternatives, I did as she said, ducking into the secret tunnel and sliding down the ladder there. She came in after me, replacing the panel, and following me down the rungs.

“Omega is full of secret passages like these,” she said. “Only a few know about them.”

“I’m guessing it’s only them who you _want_ to know about them?” I guessed.

“Precisely,” she confirmed, completely serious, looking around and taking certain turns, following her memory of the twists and turns.

“I should count myself lucky, then.”

“You did a lot for this station once,” she said. “As you are now. It’s time for me to repay that.”

Quietly, I followed her, as we came to another ladder that she beckoned me down. Always me first. I wondered, was that courtesy, or making sure that there wasn’t anything down there by judging whether or not I got ripped to shreds? The galaxy may never know.

When she hit the ground behind me, I held up a hand, hissing out a sudden _shush._ There was a rustling nearby, and my visor easily picked up the IR signature of a living thing. “Show yourself.”

A hooded figure straightened up from behind a pile of crates, and strode out into the open. The newcomer was a turian, I noticed- and a female turian at that, her face obscured by a hood. She had light, attractive plates, a metallic silvery-white, splashed in red paint shaped like an arrowhead down her face. I didn’t know her, but obviously Aria did.

“Nyreen,” she said, sounding faintly surprised. That was a first.

The turian, carrying a Phaeston rifle and a Carnifex strapped to her side, cocked her head, coolly appraising us. “Aria.”

Aria tore her eyes away from the turian, looked to me. “Glenn, this is…Nyreen Kandros. An…old acquaintance.”

“More than that, if I recall,” Nyreen said, almost coldly, crossing her arms.

“What are you doing here, Nyreen?” Aria demanded- softer than a usual Aria demand, but a demand nonetheless.

“Hiding from Cerberus,” the turian answered. “If I hadn’t known about these tunnels, I would’ve been dead for sure.”

“Then I guess it’s a good thing I showed them to you,” said Aria, almost softly.

Finally, Nyreen turned to me. “Glenn,” she said, appraising me. “Did they run you out of town, too? Or have you been here all the while?”

“I left the station almost a year ago,” I replied, looking around. “This is my first time back since then.”

“She left the uniform at home, but our broker has thrown in with the Alliance,” Aria informed her, almost disdainfully. “But I know what’s bringing her back, and that’s my incentives. Why are you here?”

“Look, maybe this is best left off ‘til later?” I broke in. “Cerberus is probably besieging your bunker by now; we should get there first, then catch up. Right?”

The both of them were dissuaded by the comment, and they both quietly agreed. “I suppose you should come with us, Nyreen,” said Aria.

“Lead the way,” she said.

Aria continued down the tunnel, the both of us in tow- we said nothing, not for lack of subjects but perhaps for the presence of the trailblazing asari in front of us. I got the feeling that the both of us wanted to know the relationship of the first to the other, but with Aria there it wasn’t like we were just going to ask.

Finally, Aria found the ending we were looking for. She kicked out the panel, and slid out. Nyreen and I followed, and chased her down to a huge open space, where Cerberus troops were advancing on big blast doors and inactive cannons, something which made Aria hiss. “Bray,” she demanded, into the channel, “Why aren’t the guns working?”

“ _It’s Cerberus interference,_ ” he replied, “ _There’s an engineer in the area jamming the firing matrix. Our people are spread too thin to try and find him._ ”

My visor picked up on the signal, and traced it nearby. I turned, and saw a hint of the telltale backpack. “Got him. You two, clear the perimeter.”

I swung down below the stairwell, into the square, and knocked down the turret standing sentry by the working engineer. The explosion warned him, had him stumbling to his feet and running away. I took off after him, but was stopped suddenly by a phantom, springing in to brandish her sword at me. I leveled her to the ground with a powerful biotic punch, planted one foot on her abdomen to prevent her moving and ended her with a vicious curbstomp to the head. “Get back here, you _fucker_!” I bellowed, looking up to see the Cerberus engineer hurrying towards the Cerberus lines. I charged straight after him, came up short, and extended a hand like I had seen Aria do before, channeling a pull but yanking like a bosun’s mate might a whiplash.

The effect was instantaneous- the engineer flew back towards me, I pulled out the Locust, and shot him to bits. “Signal should be clear now,” I called, into the comms. “Engineer is down.”

Before I had time to comprehend the reply, another Cerberus man landed in front of me with a heavy _thunk._ I took a few steps back, holding up my gun.

The soldier stood, and flicked out his gauntlets- long yellow lashes extended from each arm, and he whirled them against in a loop, driving gouges into the ground. _Speaking of the cat-o-nine_ …

He whirled the lashes at me, and I backrolled to avoid them hitting me- they _looked_ nasty enough on their own, there was no way in hell I was going to get hit with one of those. He followed me quickly, though, moving surprisingly fast for all of that armor. “Get off-” I snarled, seizing a pipe above me and using it to swing to the sill above. “-my _ass_!” I fired a handful of biotic energy down below, exploding when it hit the floor in a massive flare outwards. I pressed my forehead, as it started pounding afterwards, but the dragoon was gone, and I sprang down to look at the schematics on his gauntlets. “Fascinating,” I muttered, pulling my omni-tool up to scan.

“ _Glenn! We’ve gotta shut the doors, get up in here_!” Aria demanded suddenly, in my ear. I looked up, mapped out the plaza; saw a Cerberus trooper past the cannons and running for the doors.

I charged him, in an instant making it within running distance. As the forces retreated into the bunker, the guns came online, blasting through Cerberus forces, shoving them back. We hurried into the bunker, the blast doors closed, and we were safe- for the time being, at least.


	6. The Talons

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some surprise revelations and development in this chapter, hope you're excited! As always, it belongs to Bioware, and I hope that you enjoy it (though I do have to wonder where all my commenters have gone- you guys busy? I know I am, nowadays.)
> 
> Anyway, enjoy the chapter!

“Reinforce those doors,” Aria ground out, as soon as we made it inside.

“I haven’t seen those types of Cerberus before,” I panted, still shaking from my biotic exertion. “Lashes? Where the hell did they get that? Marvel comics?”

The two aliens shared a bewildered look. Aria, then disregarding it, looked to Nyreen, her eyes narrowing as she spoke. “Aria, I know this place is built like a fortress, but is it safe now that the general’s clued in?”

“Maybe you felt safer hiding in the dark…” I began.

Her men carried the wounded past us, where we stood. “You both know I assume nothing. And on that front- Nyreen, you left Omega fairly angry with me. I wasn’t aware that you’d returned. Explain yourself.”

“The truth is that I never left,” Nyreen replied. “A fact I went to great lengths to keep from you.”

“I’m not easily duped,” Aria spoke, stepping over a downed soldier to check terminals she passed by. “Well done. But why?”

“I just…couldn’t,” she sighed, looking around. “Considering all this…I wish I had.”

“Well, you always did say I would be the death of you.”

I folded my arms. “How do we know that for certain? Can we trust her?”

“I know for certain there isn’t a corruptible bone in Nyreen’s body,” Aria dismissed, turning back to us from the terminal.

“The Cerberus occupation is an illegal action,” Nyreen told me, shortly. “They need to be swept off this station.”

I faced her down- she was taller, I was meaner. “Talk is cheap.”

“I welcome the scrutiny, _Broker._ ”

“Don’t worry, Nyreen,” said Aria. “I know you’re no threat to us.” She stopped, sizing her up. “Your combat skills are a little rusty…but you’re still a good shot. See my duty officer.”

Nyreen nodded, curtly, and left us.

As she moved out of earshot, Bray moved up, looking expectantly at Aria. “Keep an eye on her,” she said, and Bray nodded, moving after her.

Aria began walking again, and I followed after. “Another ex-girlfriend, Aria?” No sooner had I spoken that an asari in light combat leather strode suddenly up to me and gave me a solid _thwack_ in the face.

“ _That’s_ for leaving without a goodbye,” she sniffed, whirled around and stormed off once more.

“Ah, come on-” I called after her, trailing off, muttering, “damn it, what was your name again?”

Aria watched me, arms folded, amused. “You were saying?”

“Ah, forget it,” I waved an apathetic hand. “She’s someone I had sex with; galaxy is literally full of them.

She chuckled, beginning to walk along again. “Hm. This place got boring after you left. It was always entertaining on the slow nights to watch all the girlfriends come in with your intel in their hands, and walk right up to him and the asstastic dancer grinding on his dick…” she sighed, almost wistfully, smirking. “Justice.”

I lifted an eyebrow, faced front once more. “I refuse to believe Aria T’Loak gets off on justice.”

“True,” she shrugged. “That would be more a job for your buddy Archangel, wouldn’t it?”

“Calibrations, actually,” I remarked.

“Hm.”

“This Nyreen,” I changed the subject. “Don’t think I ever met her.”

“We were opposites,” Aria said. “Our connection was powerful, but doomed. We parted on irreconcilable differences. That’s all you need to know.”

I shrugged. “Just didn’t seem like your type is all.”

“Funny,” she remarked, “Every time I see you and that vertically challenged porcelain doll, I have to think the same thing.”

“When you fly your ass to Omega-4 and back, you can start talking shit like that,” I told her, with a faint edge of a threat hidden between the lines. “Until then, I’d suggest you find a better retort tactic than prodding at someone else’s life.” We halted, facing each other down. “You sound like a petulant child.”

“This occupation has me on edge,” she put her hands on her hips, scowling. “We need to move fast, I’m itching for revenge.”

I crossed my arms, shrugging. “You’ll do what you need to do.”

“And here I thought you’d come here trying to change me,” she said, dusting her hands, moving for the higher level. She took a datapad from a batarian, punching out a few commands. “Once up and running, this bunker will provide recon and secret access to much of the station. I’d appreciate it if you’d eyeball operations quickly; make sure things are setting up smoothly.”

“What will you be doing?” I countered, following after her.

“Checking up on my forces,” she said. “I need to know how many survived the assault before I can plan the attack.” She stopped, after we had scaled the stairs. “It won’t take long. Join me at the command console when you’re ready.” With that, she left me, proceeding through a nearby door. I stood stock-still as the distinctive sound of Omega doors washed over me, then turned to the rest of the bunker.

The most distinctive thing here was the dull orange lighting- I’d once been used to it, but now it was abrasive on my eyes. The smell was much the same, too, if masked by smoke and thermal clips.

_Home, indeed._

Several of the troops eyed me as I passed by, checking terminals, running ready checks, looking into operations with the leaders Aria had appointed. Some of them whispered in my stead, I caught words like _broker_ and _why is she here?_ No doubt word of my departure had spread like wildfire. _I heard she was running with Commander Shepard now._

I paid them no heed- this area of Omega was unfamiliar, but still it was eerie to be back again. I had thought perhaps to never return.

So engrossed was I in my recollections, I didn’t notice the footsteps trailing after me. I was bent over yet another terminal, muttering, watching figures scroll by my eyes, tapping and amending a few.

“Well, I almost don’t believe my eyes,” sighed someone behind me, making me freeze where I stood. “Glenn the broker, back from the dead?”

I stood up slowly, turned my head to look cautiously over my shoulder. A quick look from behind my hair confirmed my suspicions. My heart was pounding, I found.

“Then again, maybe she isn’t,” she said. “I never knew her to be bashful.”

“Nanra,” I said, unsure of what else to say, turning about to face her. I found I was unable to meet her eyes too long, and I folded my arms, looking to the ground. “Didn’t believe your eyes, did you?”

“Well, I think I spent more time than most studying that ass,” her mouth turned up, in the quirky smile I knew. I stifled a chuckle, then looked to my feet again. “I’d know it when I saw it.”

“Word was that I’d died?” I asked her.

“No,” she shook her head. “But you disappeared so quickly, it left a power vacuum. At first a lot of people thought you’d been offed, but then the word comes that some ship went into the Omega-4 and came back…and that you were on it. Collector attacks stop, and _then_ Commander Shepard destroys an entire batarian colony system- that caused quite a stir here, with our population. And now, she’s racing across the galaxy, uniting everyone against the Reapers, and word is that some Omega is gunning right by her side.”

“I’d forgotten how bright you were,” I said, with a wistful half-smile.

“Why?” she questioned me, somewhat sharply, “Because someone had to be stupid to dump you? You were the dumb one, Glenn. Going out, getting yourself nearly killed every other day.”

“It was my business, Nanra,” I retorted, defensive, turning back to the terminal. “You couldn’t deal with it, you left, that’s how it went down, and…I don’t see any point in rehashing it now.”

A sigh, from behind me. “I never stopped loving you, you know.”

I paused.

“Just…I could only see you bruised and bloodied so many times before it reminded me that you were going to leave me one day.”

“We all leave one day, Nanra. Nothing’s immortal, no matter how much the asari like to pretend.”

“So what?” she snapped, “You just…you just forgot about me? Because after I left you, you’d screw anyone who looked your way. Was that you trying to…to leave me behind? Wash my stink off of you?”

“I buried you because I had to,” I shot back, turning around and pointing at my ripped ear, and the earring barely holding it together. “I went out angry, and missing you, and _this_ is what I ended up with.” I lowered my hand, ducking my head, shutting my eyes and trying to breathe. “It’s…the one-night stands, all of that…that wasn’t anything personal, that wasn’t about you. That was just…I let myself get used to having someone else around. Couldn’t remember how to sleep anymore, without someone next to me. Maybe I was filling some void you left, but now’s a hell of a time to get angry about that, since you’re the one that took off in the first place.”

She sighed. “You’re right, you’re right. I left. It was…stupid. And rash. I didn’t think, I just…”

“Did,” I remarked, looking bitterly off to the side. “While I was half-drugged on painkillers and laid out on the floor of a clinic, I didn’t even realize what was happening until I came off the narcotics later.”

“I regretted it almost as soon as I walked out the door,” she said, quiet.

I shrugged at her. “And you never tried to fix it? Never answered the calls I tried to make, the messages I left…” I sighed, shook my head. “Look, it doesn’t even matter; this was all a long time ago.”

“Mommy?” I froze at the small voice. A little asari tottered up and held onto Nanra’s leg, almost hiding behind her boot and looking up at me with wide blue eyes. _My blue eyes._ “Who is that?”

My throat suddenly seized up, and I swallowed hard, tears pricking at my eyes while I tried to make sense of it all. Nanra knelt, and picked the little girl up.

“Just someone I used to know, Mnemosyne,” Nanra said softly, looked at me one more time and carried the child away. She looked over her shoulder at me as she went- I almost followed, after Nanra and the little girl- _Mnemosyne, her name is Mnemosyne_ \- took one faltering step, but I halted, and let them slip away from me, into the crowds.

 _Is this how my father felt?_ I wondered. Then, I shook my head. _No. My father left me. She did, too._

I needed to move, and everything seemed to be setting up anyway. I hurried back towards the bunker’s upper level, towards Aria and her command console.

“Ahz, how are we looking?” she was asking a salarian, as I approached.

“All systems operational,” Ahz replied, tapping at the console. “Full Omega schematics coming online now.”

“Let’s take a look,” Aria beckoned me over, crossing to another display station. The asteroid came up, painting several dark spots and bright orange lines.

“What are those?” I asked.

“Force fields,” she remarked. “The general has them up everywhere. Controlling people and where they go. Touch them, and you’re incinerated.”

My mouth set into a grimace. “Lovely.”

“What are these dark areas?” she questioned, gesturing at the black spots across the station, completely offline.

Ahz came up to look behind us. “Many sections of Omega are powered down,” he said. “I’m guessing power is being siphoned to power those force fields.”

Aria looked them over. “Find the source, priority one,” she ruled.

“And we’ll need a full tactical assessment of all Cerberus positions,” I added.

Ahz hurried back to his station. “I’ll get on it.”

Aria looked over the station. “Glenn, we have work to do,” she said. “Our losses were significant. We can’t field an army large enough to face down Cerberus.”

“Then we need to find allies,” I said, blowing a short, sharp breath, almost a chuckle. “Story of my life.”

“We’ve confirmed there’s a merc gang still active,” she turned to a line of screens displaying surveillance feeds of a diverse group of armed mercenaries, rushing a Cerberus base. “The Talons are resisting the occupation. Not my first choice…but they’re all we’ve got.”

“We’ll make them join,” I folded my arms, standing with my hip cocked, eyes narrowing. “One way or another.”

“Perfectly put,” she said, smirking.

Bray came striding up to us, standing and hesitating to speak: “Sorry to interrupt…”

“What is it?” Aria demanded.

“I turned my back for half a second to offload supplies, when I looked back…”

“You _lost_ her,” Aria snapped, scowling.

“Well, I…” Bray rubbed the back of his head, nervously.

“We’re locked down,” I spoke up, as Aria began to pace, “She’s got to be around here somewhere.”

“This bunker has secret access points to the rest of the station,” Aria spoke, looking at the schematic. “Unfortunately, Nyreen knows them.” She stopped, leaned on the console and sighed heavily, head dropping between her shoulders. “Damn it, Bray. If I wasn’t already short on manpower…” she trailed off, stood up straight once more. “We have to focus on getting the Talons on board.”

I nodded. “Right.”

Aria paused, looked sideways to me. “Is something on your mind?” she questioned.

I looked up, met her gaze pound for pound. “Yes,” I said. “It won’t affect my performance, you don’t need to worry.”

“Fine, then.” She bent over the console again. “Meet me by the armory when you’re ready to go, _don’t_ keep me waiting.”

“Will do.” I descended the stairs, went walking out towards the armory. I paused, then, fists tightening and releasing, and I bowed my head suddenly, closed my eyes and folded my hands like I had seen him do so many times:

“Amonkira, Lord of Hunters,” I murmured. “Grant that my hands be steady, my aim be true, and my feet swift…” I hesitated- then I said, quickly, under my breath: “And should the worst come to pass, grant me forgiveness.”

In a flash, I swept off to the armory.


	7. A Hellcat and Her Memories

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter, at long last! I suffered a bit of life crazy and writer's block recently, but things are finally getting back on track now. There's some new art as well, and I'm working on the next few chapters as we speak. There's a lot of exciting content coming up, not just in A Matter of Pride II, but in other works and prequels coming up as well. Stay tuned! And, as usual, it's Bioware's.
> 
> ["Just someone I used to know."](http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2013/300/c/4/just_someone_i_used_to_know_by_vigilante_archangel-d6s1mut.png)
> 
> [New concept art for the upcoming installment...](http://fc00.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2013/300/9/f/stress_testing_by_vigilante_archangel-d6s1w4m.png)
> 
> I urge everyone to go look at the Eve Online CC renders again, as many of them have been updated and more characters have been added.

My breath caught when Aria showed me the way from the tunnels- I climbed out of the hole to my feet, raised my eyes to the orange sky and looked all around me. “Gamma District,” I murmured, almost to myself.

“Your old stomping grounds?” she questioned.

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “Not mine. But you never really forget the place where you grow up.”

She set to walking. Where we were, it was at least quiet- for the time being. “It was a minor gang running out of this sector, right? Three big red slashes, I remember the sign.”

“The Hellcats,” I recalled. “Founded and ran by Jennifer Tomcat Bond.”

“And then it disintegrated around ’70,” she continued, looking back to me. “What happened?”

“Tangled with the Blood Pack is what happened,” I said, looking slightly off to the side. “Two of ours killed in the fight. Mambo and Esmé went down. All of us might’ve been had, but the Suns showed up and intervened. After that, we all started drifting separate ways. Tomcat started freelancing, I started brokering, and the rest is history.”

“Except for the year you ran off with that drell,” she punctuated.

“Story for another time,” I retorted.

“We’ll have to sit down and chat, once I’ve strangled the general and hung his medals up on my wall,” she promised. “I don’t know what you did on Kahje, but you left a girl and you came back…well, older.”

“I’d wondered…well, not _wondered,_ but I was definitely catching some different looks, coming back.” I looked around, caught sight of a Batarian State Arms store front- deserted, but I knew it well enough. “Blackjack used to take me there. Sit me up on the counter, while he talked to the shopkeeper. He and the guy went way back.”

Aria regarded me walking another moment, then she spoke: “You didn’t come here just for my things, did you? You weren’t entirely at peace with all that happened here. You needed to close the doors.”

“So to speak.” I pressed my mouth thin together. “Even after everything that happened, all the time I was away…there was still a pull. Something drawing me back here. But I think…after now, after I make my peace with this place…I’m leaving. And I won’t be coming back.”

“People like you thrive on Omega,” Aria observed. “The Alliance hasn’t changed you, even if they think you have. You might wear their uniform and answer to their rank, but you’re still driven by your own ruthless ambition.”

“My ‘ruthless ambition’ is being put to different use now,” I replied, vaulting over a vent shaft. “I’m winning us this war. I’m protecting people.”

“I had you for a…what’s the human term? ‘Social Darwinist’?”

“That was before I knew anyone worth knowing,” I said. “Running with mercs, living on your own, easy to think that way. I’m sure you would know all about that.”

“So what do you think I’m taking this station back for?” she shot at me, barbed. “Pride?”

I looked at her airily over my shoulder. “Yes. I imagine they took something of yours, and though you might not particularly care for it, you’ll have it back the same.”

“They took everything,” she spat at me, her heels clicking as she strode up behind me. “Everything that I had left. It’s not just pride on the line here, it’s the only thing that they haven’t taken from me for good.” We halted, and she stared me straight in the face. “So _don’t_ tell me that this is a matter of pride.”

I crossed my arms. “The only thing? What else does Aria T’Loak call her own?”

“Called,” she said, starting away from me again, swinging onto a long, tall ladder and beginning to climb. “And you wouldn’t understand.”

“Maybe I would,” I countered, following up after her. “Try me.”

Before she could reply, the sound of a Cerberus fighter screamed by, crashing into a nearby building. Gunfire broke out, and suddenly the sounds of battle kicked into a frenzy. Aria hung halfway off the ladder, watching, and cursed as more fighters swung by. “Hurry up,” she called, climbing again amid Omega’s dull orange lights, metal slashed with red paint in the shape of a turian symbol all around us.

Once at the top, we fought our way into the base- I slammed the bypass on the door, facing out to guard while she rushed in, and straight into a line of red-armored mercs, turians, krogan, batarians, hands behind their heads and braced on their knees, a Cerberus firing squad lined up to put them down-

Before a shot could be fired, a red blur dropped from the rafters above, landing with a _crunch_ on the centurion. The newcomer shot out three more troopers, tossed two of them back with a good biotic punch- they landed badly on the ground and faded out, groaning. Aria and I shared a look, and then turned to the newcomer, helping up the mercs.

“Well, this is…textbook,” I sighed, as I recognized our company.

“Good to see you here, Boss,” one of the turian mercs said, and Nyreen jerked her head over towards the other forces entering the bunker. “Head count. Give me a report and regroup.”

The turian nodded, and took off.

Aria folded her arms, striding forward. “So good of you to turn up again,” she deadpanned. Nyreen frowned. I raised an eyebrow. “You’re leading the Talons?”

Nyreen looked at me, clearly weighing her answer. “I had the chance to do some good here. Turn this group around.”

I fought the urge to scoff, _it’s Omega_ , and instead stepped around to take a good look at the small base as Nyreen continued the exchange with Aria. “What are you doing in Talon territory, Aria?”

“Looking for your…numbers,” Aria decided, after a moment.

Nyreen scowled at her. “I won’t let you throw my men at your problem like they’re just pawns. They’re not expendable, and that’s the end of discussion.”

“ _Ev_ eryone is expendable,” I cut in. “Look, Kandros, you’re out to protect these citizens, whatever your reasons are, but the time’s come to push Cerberus off of this station. You’re fighting a war of attrition.” I stopped, folded my arms. “And you’re on the wrong side.”

“We’re not taking no for an answer,” Aria said, determinedly crossing her arms.

Nyreen glared at us both, but before she could formulate an answer, her turian lieutenant hurried up to her. “Boss, they’re attacking the outpost. Civilian evacuees are under fire.”

Nyreen turned from us in an instant, and shouted to her forces, “All units to the outpost! Move! Out on the catwalks, go, go, go!”

I looked to Aria, and we fell in beside the rush of mercenaries heading out the blast doors.

A strong wind was the first thing I noticed when we emerged onto the catwalks- strong enough to screw up my flight vector. If I charged, I could end up careening out into the vacuum. With some difficulty I pulled out my Locust, fired shots out into the gust. The slugs pulled hard to the right, so I adjusted my aim, magnetized my boots, and put up a hard barrier for errant shots.

Many mercs fell, unable to compensate for the wind and the Cerberus forces coming from the other side. My eyes watered heavily under the wind’s assault, but I could see enough to account for the troops holed up near the middle.

I fired off a shockwave, watched as it knocked the troopers from their feet and sent them flying off of the catwalk and into the empty reaches beyond. A smokescreen deployed suddenly, and I shouted in warning, “ _ATLAS incoming_!”

Sure enough, the heavy _tromp-tromp-tromp_ of a mech sounded, and it emerged slowly into the clear sightline of the catwalk. I lifted the SMG, squinted, and fired off three careful shots. The first _ping_ ed on the glass of the canopy, the second spread spidery cracks all along the surface, and the third shattered it, sending the pilot flying off screaming before I could even pop my thermal clip.

Our way was clear, and the masses rose from cover to hurry on. A krogan nearby nodded approvingly at my marksmanship, commented, “Nice face paint.”

I raised a hand unconsciously to the bridge of my nose, where the evidence of my first fight had dried. “Thanks,” I replied. “It’s made from the blood of my enemies.”

When we reached the base, shouts and gunfire were already audible from the inside. As the door override was punched, we were greeted by the sight of a line of Talon mercs, holding off an advancing group of Cerberus- behind them, a group of civilians cowered from the fire.

“ _Talons forward_!” Nyreen commanded, and we charged into the Cerberus flank like waves on a bluff, splitting them into small groups that were forced to flee through the breach in the side. The Talons chased them out, Nyreen near the rear of the group, her back to the civilians. As the Cerberus advance was at last pushed out, one last errant shot streaked through the air, and made its impact into the chest of a young batarian boy. The slug struck him so hard he flew several feet back, where there he laid, blood spreading slowly beneath him on the floor. Nyreen disengaged immediately, striding down and kneeling by his side, firing up her omni-tool in a useless display of hope. Soft gurgling sounds echoed in the bunker, and then they ceased as the boy went still. Nyreen seemed to freeze with him as well, silent and still.

Aria came back to my side, heels clicking on the metal floors. We watched Nyreen, as she knelt over the boy.

“You’ll have our support,” she said, finally, getting to her feet and moving stiffly away.

I looked again at the batarian boy, blinked, and for a moment saw Mnemosyne, the eyes that had belonged to me first staring emptily at the ceiling, seeing nothing.

“It wasn’t going to be hard,” Aria finally spoke. When I turned to her, she was facing me, sparing no looks for the dead child. “Nyreen was always trying to combat this station…it and its ‘moral bankruptcy’. She’s predictable, and therefore, easy to manipulate.” She gestured, and began to step up onto the base’s highest platform. “Come on.”

She fired up her omni-tool as she reached the top, called, “Ahz.”

The salarian’s voice came back through the channel. “Everything’s in place. The entire station is connected.”

Aria collapsed her omni-tool to just one glowing orange orb in her hand, and chatter in the bunker broke out as her face appeared on every screen.

She paced slowly across the stage, and then moved forward. “People of Omega,” she said, raising her arms, “I have returned.” She looked side to side, paced again. “Cerberus believes they have beaten you. They believe that they have you under control.” She turned to the side, where Nyreen was shaking her head. “They are _gravely_ mistaken,” she growled, jabbing the air. “You are the lawless of the galaxy. You cannot be beaten, and you will _never_ be controlled.” She stopped in her tracks, raised her hands to all of her subjects. “Be ready! Your chance to strike out against your oppressors is coming. Together, we will take Omega back!” the shouts intensified to a deafening roar, as the screens began to flicker out, and Aria followed me down to the bunker floor.

“Good speech,” I said, “Nice and short.”

Before Aria could reply, we met Nyreen down on the bunker floor. “What’s your game, Aria?” she demanded.

Aria perked a brow. “The plan, you mean?”

“What was that all about?” she followed after the pirate queen, Phaeston rifle still swinging by her side. “‘Your chance to strike out against your oppressors’? Why do I feel like I’m not going to like this?”

“Because you aren’t,” Aria deadpanned. She turned to Nyreen. “We’re going to switch off the power source to those force fields. My command center has it pinned down somewhere in the mines. Once those barriers are gone, they’ll take to the streets. The people of Omega love a good street fight. With Cerberus held back, we’ll push straight up into the Gozu district and shake off this occupation for good.”

“And what about the people, Aria, what does that mean for them-”

“It’s _war_ , Nyreen, get used to it.”

“And what about that boy?” Nyreen snapped, extending one talon out to the small form now covered in a sheet. “What about him? Somewhere on this station, there’s somebody that he’s not coming home to.”

“ _Enough_ , Nyreen,” Aria bristled, facing her down with bared teeth. The two faced each other at heated standoff, fists tight, air crackling with tension. At last, Aria stepped back, regaining her icy demeanor. “Just have your troops ready, Nyreen.”

“I’m coming with you to the mines,” Nyreen retorted, folding her arms. “Someone has to be their voice in all of this.”

“Fine,” Aria bit off, and very nearly stormed off.

Nyreen shook her head, eyes narrow, jerkily turning to me. “I assume she told you I was predictable? Easy to manipulate?”

I sized her up. “Nearly word-for-word.”

“I thought so.” Nyreen, too, left me, and after another uneasy glance at the corpse beneath the sheet, I joined the flood of Talon mercs mobilizing for Aria’s bunker.


	8. Once More into the Breach

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew! Another chapter, and I hope to get as much done here (maybe even finish) with my three-day weekend here. After that, I'll really get cracking on my added content for _A Matter of Trust_ , and afterwards it's back to _A Matter of Pride_ , with the Rannoch arc and Leviathan to open.
> 
> I hope everyone enjoys the new chapter: it's shorter than the others, but there's a lot of good stuff in there. And of course, it belongs to Bioware.
> 
> PS: Happy belated N7 Day!
> 
> [so it isn't art, but i used some poorly-timed screencaps from star trek 2009 to define rhaella and glenn's relationship ~~shut up i'm funny~~](http://the-motherfucking-joker.tumblr.com/post/66528827324/the-motherfucking-joker-using-kirk-and-bones-i)

Aria and I stood in the midst of the bunker, watching the Talon troops filing into groups, filling in corners around us. “It’s impressive,” I admitted.

“Not as much as I’d like it to be,” she sighed. “A power vacuum opened up in ‘85 after your little gang war…”

“Not mine,” I said. “And not my intent.”

“And yet…”

“Still.” I looked around us. “A pretty good spread we’ve got here.” I looked to Aria, raising my eyebrows. “The Illusive Man is about to meet his match.”

Aria’s eyes narrowed, her arms folded across her chest. “I’d only hope.”

A flash of violet leathers in the corner of my eye drew my attention, and I looked to see Nanra, cautiously navigating the crowds, Mnemosyne in front of her, both of her mother’s hands planted on her shoulders. Nanra happened to look my way- we locked eyes for a moment, and then she turned back ahead, continuing on her way.

I didn’t realize that I had been staring, or that Aria had noticed, until she spoke. I turned to see her watching Nanra moving, her eyes then sliding down to the little girl stepping carefully along in front of her. Aria observed a few moments more before she spoke. “You and your ex-girlfriend had a kid, huh? I hope you’ve been paying child support.”

“I didn’t even know that she existed until a few hours ago,” I said, folding my arms, watching them melt away into the crowds, suppressing the sudden, unfamiliar urge to follow them into the mess, put a barrier around them both. “I guess Nanra was pregnant when she left me. I tried to contact her after, but she never answered. Even when I met her again here…I never even would’ve known if the kid hadn’t come looking for her.”

“She looked like you,” Aria remarked. “Same eyes. Similar bone structure.”

“And that’s all she’s gotten from me,” I scoffed. “It’s been…” I had to pause. “Six years, since we were together. That’s six years I haven’t been there, I…I always swore that I would _never_ become my father, and…and look at me. Here I am, my daughter’s six years old and she wouldn’t know me from a vorcha’s ass.”

Aria’s brow went up at me. “Somehow I feel like you’re new to this whole parenting thing.”

“You’re one to talk,” I grumped.

“I am,” Aria retorted. I turned to her, baffled, eyebrows slowly creeping up when I arrived at my conclusion. “You…”

“I did,” she said, shortly, looking away from me. “Once.”

I blinked, trying to reconcile the image of Aria T’Loak and Aria T’Loak as a mother, and shook my head. “What…well, what happened to her? I never-”

“You might have met her and not even realized it,” said Aria. “She worked with my men. The fact that she was my daughter was…not public knowledge. Her name was Liselle.”

“Liselle,” I repeated, frowning. “I…think I might have heard the name. Once or twice. I…I never even thought that you would…well.”

Aria shook her head. “No.” she walked over to her terminal, opening the central display and checking progress on the systems. “I never had many children. I spent a long time before I came here as a mercenary.” She smirked. “And I was a damned good one, too. Only one job I never finished. I spent centuries killing people for credits and fucking anyone I wanted to. Plenty of sex. No children.” She leaned on the bar, dropping her head between her shoulders. “They don’t exactly fit into this lifestyle, it requires a certain…temperament. There was always a risk of them inheriting their father’s disposition. Too much margin for error. Liselle was no exception. I thought I had found the ruthless match…you remember, the one job I didn’t finish?” she turned back to me. “He almost killed me. I escaped him…barely. Hell of a brawler. Crafty when he wanted to be…and absolutely relentless. It’s the closest I’ve ever been to gone, when we went toe to toe. I ended up having to blow the station, and I had to get out of there in an empty fuel pod I pushed around with my own biotics; until a batarian freighter picked me up.” She paused in her recollection, chuckling. “And I left him a message. ‘Better luck next time.’”

“You ever find out what happened to him?” I asked.

“Oh, he’s making headlines now,” she sighed. “And I have to wonder if he still remembers me.” she stepped away from the rail. “We were…friends, in the way that mercs are. Always knowing someday we could be up against each other. One day we were, but before that…” she trailed off, then pulled up her omni-tool, showing me a picture of an asari maiden in combat leathers. I couldn’t help feeling like she looked vaguely familiar, even though I had never seen her before. “She _was_ like how they needed to be…mostly. At times she displayed these unprecedented bouts of…dignity, almost. Leadership. She cared about people, her own people, even if she tried to pretend that she didn’t. She wanted to make Omega better, even if she had mostly given up on everyone else.” Aria shut off the omni-tool. “It was enough to destroy her,” she added, quietly. “I loved her, though. In that matter, a mother has no choice.”

I frowned. “What happened to her?”

“These Cerberus bastards killed her,” Aria snarled, punching a nearby console. “The Illusive Man sent his _bastard_ dog Leng after her, and he cut her throat with a _kitchen knife._ ”

Already startled from Aria’s sudden outburst, I was only further reeling by her furious admission. “Leng? Kai Leng?”

“You know him?” Aria looked to me.

“He killed my…” I trailed off, crossing my arms, looking to my feet. “A friend of mine. And he’s going to die slowly for it.” my hands tightened into fists.

Aria scowled out into the distance, her lip curling. “Tell him who sent you,” she said, finally, looking at her console and shaking her head. “I’ll be along in a moment. Go and wait by the armory.”

“Will do,” I said, leaving almost hurriedly, stepping down towards the armory, slowing down when I noticed Nyreen already waiting there. Her eyes were locked onto me too, so I knew that she was waiting. Slowly, I made my way across, until we stood face to face. “Kandros,” she said.

“Glenn,” she replied. “I had hoped we would get a chance to talk. Away from Aria.”

“Oh really?” I questioned. “What’s this about?”

“I know that she thinks you’re exactly like her- and you _are_ alike- but not all of the way.” As she paced, she turned back to me. “I know you care more about the people than she does.”

“She cares,” I said.

Nyreen shook her head. “She’s not herself, though. I don’t know what’s gotten into her.”

 _Cerberus took everything she had._ A long pause, and then I shook my head. “Maybe, but…she cares more than I do.” I looked at the door. “My life here…like a living hell, but it was all I ever knew. I wonder now…why I didn’t leave sooner. Or what it would’ve been like if I never left. Maybe…maybe things would have been different.” I sighed, shoulders sagging. “I’m fighting it now, I was fighting it then, I was always fighting it. This fight isn’t for the station; it’s for me, and the sake of a little peace, so I can sleep at night.” I turned back to Nyreen. “Don’t mistake me as more concerned for your citizens. I’m the most selfish of all of us here.”

Nyreen regarded me, with narrowed eyes. “Did you have something against running away?” she asked, finally.

I pondered that a moment. “You start running,” I said, finally, “they never let you stop. You stand up, push back…it can’t go on forever, right?

Nyreen looked thoughtful. But the time for deep revelations was over, as Aria approached us and the doors opened to herald the way to the mines.


	9. Drums in the Deep

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoo, two chapters in a day! I didn't know I had it in me. Anyway, as usual, it belongs to Bioware, blah blah blah. I'm just pausing in my writing frenzy to put this one up, but at this rate Omega will be done by tonight, and definitely by tomorrow. I hope everyone enjoys the update(s)!

When we found the doorway that led into the mines, it was sealed off without even hope of bypass. We had officially entered the dark zone.

“This is where they mined the eezo,” I posed the statement, less a question.

“The power control should be through here,” Aria replied, as she slipped through the doors that Nyreen and I worked to pry open. “That’s what the schematics say. I ran Omega; I didn’t work the mines myself.”

“You had servants for that,” Nyreen retorted, distastefully, and I worked hard not to sigh and roll my eyes, sent a quick prayer- _Arashu, give me the strength to withstand squabbling ex-girlfriends_ \- and switched on the Locust’s flashlight.

The sight that met us was gruesome, jarring- we all took a step back.

“Don’t worry,” said Aria, kneeling to examine the blood and then the corpses. “They’re all Cerberus.”

I knelt to take a look at them- signs of struggle, mauling, blood and tossed corpses, not thrown by anything human. “Well, someone…or…some _thing_ …had a serious grudge against them.” I straightened up. “What could’ve killed them? My best guess would be an equipment accident, but there’s nothing above us.” We all looked up.

Nyreen spoke, a moment later. “They said the general shut off these districts to siphon power-”

Just then, an eerie, hissing whisper began. We whirled around, guns training on the sound- but it moved, quickly, too fast, and it sounded like it was everywhere at once, all around us.

“Adjutants,” said Nyreen.

“I was suspicious about that story from the start,” I muttered, turning around and illuminating the corpses. “Any Cerberus exec worth his salt would know how to work station power. Or better yet, bring someone that did. He sealed these districts off to contain the adjutants inside.” I waved a hand at the dead troopers. “And an unlucky few.”

We waited, but the whispering was unceasing. “Come on,” Aria said, finally. “It’s this way.”

We followed her through the dark- moving until we reached a small room. The power interface was dully glowing, still, and she waved me towards it to get it up and running again. In a few minutes, I had restored power. A map popped up of the surrounding area, and I scanned it before turning around. “The elevator’s not too far from here, should be up and-”

Something huge and blue shot through the window, shattering the glass and roaring a jarring, half-machine, half-plague ridden monster’s growl. “ _Spirits_!” gasped Nyreen.

“ _Unload on it_!” I stared at the thing, the tentacles hanging beneath its eyes, stunned momentarily at its similarity to the countless holos filed away in Liara’s files, statues on Ilos, Javik’s words recalling his race’s learning of mass effect technology from the previous, _Inusannon-_

“ _Wake up_ , Nyreen,” Aria snapped, and it pulled me back too. I rolled into cover, shot at the thing- _damn,_ was it fast- I sprang from cover, leapt onto a counter, fired off a warp at it and sprang up into the rafters, swinging onto the pipelines above and crouching near the vent shaft to shoot a singularity at the beast- as the small black hole did its job, catching the angry adjutant up in its grasp- a biotic strike from Aria rendered it done, dripping some sort of greenish-black blood onto the ground.

“The elevator,” I snapped, “ _Go._ ” Aria and Nyreen took off, vaulting through the broken window, heading off towards the lift. Roars echoed from around us, and I whirled to face the opposition. “More coming!”

Two adjutants leapt at me. Aria raced to help me tear them apart, but two more yet leapt down and accosted her. Nyreen stood frozen behind us, her rifle’s scope dancing uncertainly between the quick-leaping targets.

“Get-in-my- _RANGE_ ,” I bellowed, flat-out charging one and sending it flying back, spinning on my heel to fire off a shockwave, flushing the second from cover. I filled its head with slugs, employed the justicar’s lift to take me up onto a fuel canister. “Hey, ugly!” I shouted to the other two, trying to snap at Aria where she was cornered, a barrier up as her only defense. They both turned at the noise, snarled, and rushed me.

“Come and get it,” I hissed at them, tore open the top with a screech of metal. They had almost reached me-

“Glenn, what are you _doing_?” Aria called at me. I ignored her, leapt back, turned feet-over-forehead, sprang off of the edge with my hands- I turned over once in the air, grabbed onto the rafter that passed just above me- the adjutants scaled the fuel canister, ready to pursue me, further piercing the metal with their claws- as soon as they reached the top, they were met by my omni-tool’s incinerate.

The fuel canister exploded- the mines lit up with a huge, fiery explosion, and soon pieces of flaming metal were raining down on our heads.

“Onto the lift!” Aria spat, as we ran, with biotic barriers above our heads. We rushed onto the platform. Nyreen punched it and we began to fly up- a huge shard of fiery steel coming at us that much faster. “ _BRACE YOURSELVES_ ,” I screeched, and raised my arm to the object. We curled into a protective crouch, eyes squeezed shut- the metal hit with a loud impact of flash-projected shield, just above us. When they opened their eyes and looked up, they saw only the vestiges of the thing that could have meant our end sliding off of the huge omni-shield I had thrown up over the three of us.

“That’s _not_ standard issue,” Aria said to me, scowling.

“No,” I agreed, punching a few buttons to withdraw the riot shield. “I stole it from the Shadow Broker.”

A relative silence passed as we rose. “What’s eating you, Nyreen?” asked Aria.

The turian shook her head. “The general clearly sealed that area off to keep the adjutants contained,” she said. “Like you said, with a few unlucky soldiers. The creatures killed them, but…didn’t turn them into more adjutants.” She shuddered. “I can’t shake it. Something isn’t right.”

“You’re just spooked.”

“There’s a rhythm to this place, Aria,” Nyreen countered. “To Cerberus. If you’d stuck it out, maybe you’d feel it too.”

 _Both of you shut up!_ “Whatever’s in our way, we deal with it.” I cut off conversation, and there was silence a few moments more before Nyreen spoke again. “Why are you grinning, Aria?”

“Because we’re almost there,” the asari replied. “Those fields come down, and then this war finally begins.”

“For some of us, it started months ago.”

Aria chuckled. “That wasn’t war, babe. That was a warm-up.”

As our lift reached the top, we hurried into the reactor control. “This place isn’t manned,” Nyreen began, suspiciously, but she needed speak no more, as a huge red force field landed in a circle around us. We folded into a kill-circle, guns aloft, but the only thing that came to meet us was a small blue circle. When it approached, it halted, and unfolded into a full transmission of Oleg Petrovsky, facing us at parade rest.

“I commend you,” he said, “Your plan of attack was impeccable.”

I turned to the other two. “Looks like we were expected.”

“More like ‘lured’,” muttered Nyreen.

“I knew the reactor would be the hard target,” said Petrovsky, affording the clearly-overworked generator a quick glance. “I gave you no other choice but this route.”

I took a few steps forward. “Why don’t you do any of this in person, Petrovsky? Get your own hands dirty.”

“I take no pleasure in any of this, Commander,” he replied. “ _You’re_ the ones trying to start a war…for the _glory_ of Aria. But now it’s over.”

“This isn’t _over_ until your next of kin can’t _identify_ you,” snapped Aria, turning restlessly for the barriers corralling us.

The general scoffed, beginning to pace. “I love your bravado,” he said, “But have the sense to know when you’re beaten. You’ve been neutralized, and I can leave you here to rot. You might as well give up.”

“ _Never_ ,” Aria barked, turning fully to the field, hands clenching. “Aria, what are you thinking?” I spoke, hurriedly.

“I’m _not_ going out like this!” she answered. Nyreen rushed up- “Aria, don’t-!”

Aria jammed her hands into the field, glowing a fierce blue, beginning to force the unbreakable energy apart with a low growl.

Petrovsky took a few steps forward. “What the _hell_ is she trying to do?”

Aria didn’t answer, only shoved the barrier apart a few inches more.

“Damn it, Aria, you’re forcing my hand,” Petrovsky snarled. “Fine,” he said, turning around as his projection disappeared. “We’ll do it your way, then.”

On the other end of the circle, odd energy-ridden noises sounded as three dark-colored mechs passed through the field, tromping straight towards us- just like the infernal LOKI mechs we’d racked up like cheap shot in the Dirty Dozen era, but more advanced, heavier, more powerful, more dangerous.

Omni-tool powering up, I rushed them. “Nyreen, cover her!” I bellowed, slid into cover, and peered out to deploy a chain overload.

No tech was immune to simple sabotage of its circuitry, but the rampant mechs fought me when I launched the hacking module- I hadn’t made a living of almost getting it done, though, and I fielded those three against the more that began to show up, moving through the force field, brandishing huge omni-blades like sleeve-concealed knives. Luckily, I was no amateur when it came to concealed weapons.

Just then, Aria screeched at me from the other end of the circle- “Glenn- _argh_! I can’t hold this up much longer!” I took off running, sprinting for the small breach, would have to be calculated, Aria screamed and pulled it wide, I forward-rolled through the gap, and then it was shut off- but I was through.

“Sprits, Aria,” said Nyreen on the other side as she helped her up, muffled from the barrier that separated us. “How did you know you could do that?”

“I didn’t,” she said, as they turned to face the mechs. I stood as well, looked down the hall, and hurried down the catwalks, seeking out the reactor control.

It wasn’t far- I saw the glow of an interface above me, took the short flight of stairs up to it and skidded to a stop in front of the controls, beginning to punch the buttons and ready the overload.

Just then, Petrovsky appeared. “Commander, you can’t do this,” he said. “There’s more at stake than you know.” I ignored him, continued to fire up the command. It was almost ready to deploy, just a few more specs- “That reactor powers life support for dozens of wards across the station.” Now, I froze. “Shut it down, and thousands of people perish.”

“Aria, are you hearing this?” I radioed her in, suddenly paralyzed with indecision.

“ _Yes, and I don’t care._ ” Aria, it seemed, was unaffected. “ _Shut it down_!”

“ _Glenn, don’t,_ ” Nyreen implored. “ _There has to be another way, something else._ ”

The red button that would shut the reactor down was flashing, ready for my command- my hand hovered above- but I couldn’t. _Which reactor is powering Mnemosyne’s life support? Which one is keeping my daughter alive?_

“ _Damn it_ ,” I hissed, “Hold tight down there.” I set again to the keyboard, fingers flying across the controls, resetting schematics and rewriting the command code.

Petrovsky watched me, pacing again. “Rerouting the power to maintain the other systems. It’s commendable, but perhaps it’s not-”

“Maybe if I weren’t Terminus’ leading technical savant,” I cut him off, punching it. The interface sparked, and the reactor interface went from red to stable blue, the power leveling out across the districts. The reactor began to roar, the lights flashing green, steam pouring from the output pipelines. I unslung the SMG without another word, and raced back to the circle that Aria and Nyreen still occupied, the force fields coming down. The general was left there alone, speechless.

I raced back into the circle, found Nyreen and Aria backing their way into another passage way, shooting out at mechs that were trying to follow them in. With a charge and a nova I dispersed them, rolled into the hall, and let the door shut behind me. I got to my feet, brushing off my front, turning to Aria. “You okay?”

“Never better,” she said.

“That makes two of us,” said Nyreen, crossing over to where we stood. “You brought all your skills to bear and accomplished the task without sacrificing any lives,” she said. “I applaud you.”

I sighed. “I don’t want a fucking medal, Kandros. The few extra seconds that _I_ risked _your_ life for was for _my_ daughter.” I pushed the Locust back into its holster. “Without her in the mix, all bets were off. You don’t know how close I was to killing thousands.” I folded my arms, met her green stare ounce for ounce.

“Glenn remains cool under pressure,” Aria broke the silence. “Mind clear, shit together. Take a good, hard look. _That’s_ what fearlessness looks like.”

“What are you driving at, Aria?” Nyreen spoke, sharply.

“You fought bravely against those mechs in there, Nyreen,” Aria turned to her. “Very impressive.”

“But?”

“Why can’t you bring that same grit when adjutants attack?” Aria’s arms folded across her chest, head cocking. “It’s _pathetic_. You tense up at the mere _mention_ of those abominations.” I took a brief look at the turian, at Aria. “What’s gonna happen if we run into _more_ , Nyreen? Huh?”

I broke the brief pause that followed, taking a brief step forward, heels snapping on the hard floor. “She’ll find out what she’s really made of. Let’s move on.”

Aria took a breath. “Gladly,” she said. “The war’s starting. I don’t mean to miss it.”

As she started away, Nyreen looked to me and shrugged flatly. “She’s never been big on thank yous.” We followed her out.

In the lift down, Nyreen listened intently to her comm channels for a few minutes before filling us in. “Getting reports. All force fields down. Civilians taking to the streets in droves. Cerberus pulling back.”

“That won’t last,” I remarked.

“The people don’t have the training to go up against Cerberus frontlines,” Nyreen was agitated, pacing the small space. “They’ll be wiped out!”

 _And what happens when they finally crack that bunker and find a little girl who’s not of their master race?_ I looked to Aria. “Civilian casualties aren’t avoidable, you’ll have to accept that,” she said, sounding bored.

In a change of course, I turned now to Nyreen, implored her, “Do what you can to keep them safe.”

“Of course, Glenn,” Nyreen replied, and Aria rolled her eyes in the opposite corner. In the next moment, though, her mic beeped. “ _Aria. Bray here._ ”

“Report,” she said.

“ _My team is scouting the maintenance tunnels. We’ve encountered Cerberus forces escorting engineers. They’re moving gear, look to be setting explosives at the station’s central support columns._ ”

Aria snapped at once. “Bray, engage. Delay them as long as you can, we’re coming.”

“ _Got it. Roll out, people_!”

“They blow the columns, the way to Afterlife is cut off,” Aria rattled off, pulling her shotgun. “The Talon offensive stops cold.”

“Not to mention the station collapsing,” I put in. “So we’re splitting up?”

“We’ll have to. Nyreen, lead the frontal assault. We’ll rendezvous in the markets once we’ve taken care of those bombs,” Aria directed, as I filed in next to her, drawing the Locust.

Nyreen stepped up to the control panel, hitting the buttons to let us off. “Don’t count on me building your memorials if you get yourselves killed,” she said.

“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Aria retorted, with a fair dose of venom, and then the doors opened, and we hurried off.

We rushed through the waterworks, into a long, narrow labyrinth of hallways, full of guardians that earned a slug through the vision slot of their shields. We finally reached the last door- I slammed the bypass, opened the door to the Cerberus engineer force- and six bombs, all ticking down to detonation.

“They’re messing with support columns, take them out!” Aria called. The legion wasn’t prepared nor equipped to handle the sudden biotic assault, and they fell quickly- the last corpse ended slumped on a rail that I vaulted over to reach the control panel. From there, I shut them down one by one. As the last explosive went dead, I stepped back. “We’re clear.”

“Good.” Aria pushed her earpiece. “Nyreen, what’s your position?”

“ _We’re advancing through the Gozu district,_ ” she came in on the other end. A long pause rung loudly as she presumably dispensed orders. “ _We’re holding our own,_ ” she came in again, slightly staticky, “ _But Cerberus has started targeting the civilians. We’ve got reports of casualties coming in from all sectors._ ”

Aria shook her head. “Just get to the rendezvous point, that’s all that matters.”

More static. “ _Not in my world. Nyreen out._ ”

I looked to Aria. “So how do we get to Afterlife from here?”

Aria glanced at the huge fan blocking off the door. “I’m thinking the straightforward approach…for a change.” She threw a huge biotic blast at the fan, stopping it cold and allowing our passage through.

Once in, it was up a few ladders, through a few passageways- I heard Cerberus gunfire, the characteristic sound of their Mattock rifles, whispered the name.

“How do you know? Could be the Talons-” a few troopers crashed through the glass, landing with sickening _crunch_ es on the floor. “Never mind.”

We scaled the last ladder, found our way into what had the ground troops dying like flies- “Damn it,” Aria hissed, “Ahz, there are adjutants here. Track our progress and seal the doors behind us.”

“ _Yes, Aria._ ”

We crossed into the lab main, mostly quiet, bitter cold. A strange blue fluid covered the ground. I was careful not to slip. “Looks like they bit off more than they could chew,” I murmured. Nearby, a log was playing on repeat. _With the civilian population contained, we should - with the civilian population contained, we should - with the civilian population contained, we should-_

I approached the log, and performed a quick scrub with the omni-tool. It began to play normally. _With the civilian population contained, we should be able to continue with the next phase of the project on schedule. Before host conversion, we should begin the process of fusing the control implants with the subjects’ nervous systems. With the current success ratio, we should be able to surpass demand by a projected three hundred percent._

“Those idiots were experimenting on adjutants,” Aria remarked.

I narrowed my eyes. “It explains the ones we saw earlier.” I shook my head. “Controlling Reapers? What is Cerberus doing?” I turned to Aria. “This might look bad to you, but it fits what I’ve been seeing on the outside. The Alliance has been trying to crack what the Illusive Man’s game is, but so far the answer’s about as fitting as his name.” I pressed my mouth tight together, repeated, almost a whisper, “Controlling Reapers.” After a long pause, I powered up my omni-tool. “I’m taking all of this data back to Alliance Command. It’s too eerie to be ignored.”

Once the files had been copied to my banks, I hurried after Aria to the door.

“Extra security,” she remarked, setting to the panel. “The doors only open one at a time.”

“Makes sense, considering what they had locked up in there,” I replied.

“Door’s open,” Aria said, as she overrode the protocol. “Let’s go. Gozu district’s just through that door.” We crossed the room, hurried to the greenlocked door with the sound of gunfire on the other side, and slammed the open. “Kandros, we’re into your sector,” I called, over the comms- I stepped over the lintel, and just like that, I was home.


	10. Return to Gozu

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The second-to-last chapter is here! I believe I'll finish tonight. I hope everyone's ready to rock and roll! The added content will come along in waves, and then I can really work on A Matter of Pride in earnest, because there are more huge moments and plot twists in store. I hope everyone is ready!
> 
> And of course, it belongs to Bioware.

As we rushed into the old place, I was hit by a barrage of memories, even more powerful than when we had surfaced in Gamma. Here was the ventilation system that Thane Krios had chased me through, determined to fulfill his contract and make my end until he had made a different call. Here was the hall that I had taken to make my way into the VIP section, those many nights before, and that last fatal time to chase down the very deadliest of killers. There, even, was the transport depot that Tomcat had plucked me out of. “ _He’s not coming back for you, kid._ ” I slammed my way through the Cerberus troopers entrenched there with a particular ferocity.

Then, we were inside the markets, civilians hiding or being tended to. There was no sign of Nanra or Mnemosyne, but we fought on. In fact, soon I did hear a familiar voice, though it invoked less relief and more irritation. “For the blight that is humanity stains all in its path, and the only chance at redemption lies in the word!”

When the door opened to the batarian that had been preaching on his soapbox all my life- and seemingly, continuously after I left- found a slug straight in his chest. Just a choking noise, as he flew back off of his platform. All those who had been listening (mostly quizzical humans, to my amusement) turned to the direction which it had come from.

“This is my district, asshat,” I deadpanned, ejecting the spent thermal clip.

The civilians- beginning to recognize me with wide-eyed whispers- watched me as I continued on. Aria and I raced down the hall, before I knew it we were passing the last barricade that John and I had vaulted over to charge Archangel’s fortress of solitude. We reached the lift, and we began to go up.

Silence, and then Nyreen came in over speakers. “ _Nyreen here. Something’s not right._ ”

“Cerberus is still on my station, of _course_ something’s not right,” Aria snapped back.

“ _Not what I was talking about,_ ” Nyreen deadpanned. “ _Checking this out. Going radio silent._ ” With that, her channel dropped.

Aria looked to me, irritated. “What the _hell_ is she doing?”

As the elevator opened, we were met with the male turian from earlier, Nyreen’s second in command. “Where’s Kandros?” I asked.

“Scouting ahead,” he replied, as one of the others pushed aside a crate to allow our passage. “We’ve got our hands full, holding this area.”

Aria seemed to give a start with the sudden realization, muttered, “She’s going on to Afterlife!” she took off running for the night club, and I followed hot on her six-inch heels.

Past the skyline, past the transport depot that had brought us to Garrus and started this whole thing, past the docks that the _Normandy_ had always used. Then, we were before it again, Afterlife. Running, jetting, _sprinting_ up on the side- there was Nyreen, encased in a barrier with a horde of adjutants, what was she doing, _what was happening-_

My sightline improved with approach just enough to see the belt of grenades at her feet. She afforded us one sideways glance, and then the explosives went off. A cloud of fierce orange within the blue, and then black smoke rose outside of it- it had vanished with the one who had cast it.

I glanced to the doors, saw suddenly what Nyreen must have been protecting- a cluster of civilians huddled at the door, away from the adjutants. A sharp gasp escaped me when I saw Nanra and Mnemosyne, tucked among them, the girl with her face buried in her mother’s neck. Slowly, the both of them looked and saw me there. Aria stood silent among the ash, nothing left but.

Then, her fists tightened. She ran. “ _That’s_ it!” she snarled, sprinting at the Cerberus troops. “Tell your boss I’m coming for him!” she crunched the two into nothing, exuding enough biotic force that it sent me skidding back. I took off running after her, called “Get out of here!” to the civilians as I passed. Mnemosyne stared, and Nanra pulled her close.

Through the entry way, where I had threatened my first gang. “ _Enough_ ,” Aria spat, as we came to the last door. “Petrovsky dies, _now._ ”

Inside, the interior had been redecorated with control panels, instrument UIs, and Cerberus logos. Although, I thought I saw a few stripper poles still standing.

“Nyreen Kandros was a good soldier,” spoke Petrovsky, calling to us atop his high balcony. “A shame she had to die, for your petty ambitions.”

The rage returned. Aria sprinted for him, “ _You’re a dead man!_ ”

Too late, I recognized the superstructure in the middle. “Aria, _no_!” The second she leapt into the middle, the four ends ignited, trapping her inside, dampening the very eezo in her blood. Inhibitors would block the nerve impulses from your brain to your nodes. Dampeners would eventually kill you.

I stopped, shot a wary glance up to the balcony. “What now, Petrovsky?” I questioned.

“Divide and conquer, Commander,” he replied. “Kandros killed the adjutants we hadn’t finished experimenting on.” He reached towards his interface; hit a button there to open the door. A slow horde of adjutants shuffled in, groaning, their cannon arms swinging. “ _These_ are fully under our control…the prototypes for our future army.”

The adjutants, at once, seemed to roar, and then they raced and dodged with the ferocity and the speed I had seen before- but now, they knew their target, and it was me.

I threw off the first one and shot out the second- but neither fell. It seemed Cerberus had upgraded them to be sturdier as well. They closed in on me as a pack, but I refused to show any shred of fear, igniting a barrier, baring my teeth-

And then another body shot in, propelled by biotic force, smashing in through a window. A rain of glass fell on the adjutants, scattering them, making them vulnerable to the biotic strike that hit them next- one from me, and another from the stranger.

Nanra landed by my side, in a commando’s crouch, straightening up and aiming an Acolyte pistol. “Let’s finish these monsters off,” she said to me.

Instantly, she sprinted for the adjutants, corralling them into a containable pack, allowing for me to sprint to the first panel for the dampeners. “Hold on!” I called to Aria. The first shackle came off- her left hand was free. Aria growled, and threw a warp at the nearest adjutant. With biotics like Aria T’Loak’s, she might’ve been able to break free with just two cuffs gone.

“Hurry it up, Glenn!” Nanra called at me. She leapt into the air, grabbing hold of the nearest pole and swinging around it to deliver several charged shots. “I’m not about to have my daughter following in your footsteps.”

“She’s one-half you,” I called back, rolling and dodging my way to the next switch. “I figure she has a fighting chance.”

“And she’s one-half you,” Nanra retorted, “Which means she won’t give up even when she’s whipped and she knows it.”

I snorted, in spite of myself, of everything, and sprinted to the third dampener. I unlocked the switch, just as Nanra threw the adjutants off with a last, huge warp and rushed to the last one. Aria was free, and she let everyone know it with a blast, a detonation, dropping down and lifting the last adjutants into the air. Nanra and I exchanged looks, then we threw our best singularities into the field, detonating it and tearing the adjutants into small pieces, sucking them into black holes just small enough to take them away, to wherever the end of the plane of existence was.

Suddenly, Petrovsky’s voice rang out over the loudspeakers- over all of Omega. “ _All forces- stand down. Cease and desist all aggression. It’s over._ ”

Aria turned now to the side stairs that led up to her throne. The job was nearly done. She walked first, and after looking at each other, Nanra and I followed. As we scaled the steps, Petrovsky looked directly to me and spoke quickly: “Commander Glenn, I surrender myself into your custody-”

Aria stepped directly in front of him, glowing fiercely. “That is the most _pathetic_ thing I have ever heard,” she said lowly, slapping him across the face with a good biotic blow, knocking him to the ground.

“Please, Glenn…” the general appealed. “I’m unarmed. I can give the Alliance intel on the Illusive Man-” Aria picked him up by the throat, slammed him down onto his own console, holding him down as he struggled and choked in her hold. “You’ll say anything to save your skin,” she growled.

“I let you…escape Omega,” he choked. “I deserve…mercy!”

I folded my arms across my chest. “That true, Aria?”

“Inexplicably,” she replied. “I think he’ll agree now that it was the _biggest_ mistake of his life.”

“But this is…” the general pleaded, “murder!”

“That’s right,” Aria intoned, lowly. “Cold…blooded…murder. No less than you deserve.” He struggled again, gasping for breath, trying desperately to push her off. “Oh no, not yet. You don’t get a quick, easy death…” I walked away from the scene, as Bray came up the steps. Nanra joined me, casting an uneasy look at the scene behind us. Gradually, the gasps from the general faded, and at last came the death rattle. Oleg Petrovsky’s reign of terror was over. The regime of Aria T’Loak was at last ready to resume.


	11. Don't Fuck With Omega

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the last chapter! I'd like to thank everyone who stuck by Omega, even when it was coming along perilously slowly and horribly. I'd advise everyone to check up on A Matter of Trust soon and frequently, maybe subscribe to be alerted of the updates as they come. Happy hunting, readers, and enjoy the upcoming content. :)

As soon as Aria let go the corpse, it slumped to the ground. She stepped over it in coming back to look over the balcony, told Bray, “Clean up this mess.” The batarian moved to oblige, as she moved in beside me, looking over her stronghold with its foreign profanities.

“Glenn, I…never thought I’d enjoy having a partner,” she said, almost uncomfortably. The silence only had time to be awkward for a few moments, before she seized me and pressed her lips to mine. Her hands ran down my arms, sat on my hips and dared dip lower before she let me go. In the same instance, our minds suddenly met, just for an instance, a few moments, and then it was all over, and she almost shoved me off. _Was there tongue? I think there was tongue._

“Thank you for not…interfering,” she said, finally. “Killing that man was…deeply satisfying. And thanks to you, I have Omega back.”

“So what’s your plan?” I asked her.

“There’s a lot to rebuild,” she said, looking about, pacing her podium. “Starting with this…command center.” The words were spoken with no shortage of disgust. “It may take some time to remove the general _stink_ from my throne.” She strode back up to the balcony. “Wonder if I’ll ever really enjoy the pole dancing in here again.”

I glanced quickly at Nanra, remembered Nyreen. She had given her life, protecting my daughter, and her mother, whom I loved still. I owed it to her, at least, to put in a word for her. “The citizens of Omega have been through a lot, Aria. Try to remember that.”

“They better remember who liberated them,” she retorted. I chalked it up to high adrenaline, still. They were her people, and no one touched them but her. Soon, she would be back to her old possessive self. “And don’t worry. I’ll honor our arrangement- ships, troops, and a mountain of eezo. You’ve earned it.” She paused, looked out over the citizens moving slowly into the vicinity, then to me. “If I didn’t know better,” she said, “I might ask you if you would stay and rule with me.” she turned. “Maybe you’ve only got a hundred years or so left, but it’d be a hell of a century.” She smiled slightly, then looked to her hands on the rail.

“It could all be over tomorrow,” I said, recalling the war raging around us. I felt weary already, just anticipating my return to the front lines.

“I don’t know,” said Aria. “With people like you on our first response…I think we have at least a fighting chance.” She looked to me. “I guess you’d better be going then. You’ve got a post of duty and a boyfriend prone to shattering to get back to.”

“That I do,” I replied, extending her my hand. “On that note, good luck. With…everything.”

“Glenn, that sounds like a goodbye,” she said, smirking, taking my hand nonetheless and shaking it.

I looked around. “Well…it is.” I turned back to her. “A lot happened here. A lot of me…was defined, in this place. But…it’s not who I am anymore. I think I finally understand that now.” As we let each other go, I took one last look around the bastardized club anterior. “I don’t think I’ll be coming back.”

She reached into a pocket. “Then take this,” she said. “It’s the key to your old apartment. I locked it up after you left, so it probably hasn’t been touched since you’ve been gone, unless someone else had access codes.” I took it from her with a nod of gratitude, slipping it into my own inside pocket. Aria’s eyes went to the floor- then, she smiled, an almost bittersweet glance. “I can’t believe I’m saying this now, but I think I’ll miss you, Broker. Go easy on the rest of the galaxy.”

“I’ll try,” I replied, grinning. “No promises.”

She nodded, and then looked down to Nanra, where she had migrated amongst the civilians. “I’ll take care of her,” she said, breaking the mutual silence. “And your daughter. I’ll do everything in my power to keep them safe. And when the war’s over, I’ll send them to live someplace else.” She turned to the back of the platform, at the panel Petrovsky had died on. “Someplace nicer. A real planet, with a day and a night, a star that rises and sets. Someplace Liselle should have known.”

I didn’t answer for a long while. Then I nodded. “Thank you.”

She nodded back. I straightened up. “Well. I suppose I should get back to my war.”

“That you should,” she replied. “Don’t lose. I just got my station back; I’d rather not fight the Reapers for it.”

As I turned on my heel and left, Aria’s voice rang over the loudspeakers, echoing across the entire station. “Citizens of Omega, hear me. I, Aria T’Loak, have given you back your lives. My rule is reignited. My hand is on the controls once more and I will _not_ let go again! Each of you owes a debt. Gain my favor by rounding up the remaining Cerberus troops and…and we will take our revenge! It’s their turn to tremble, _their_ turn to bleed. Going forward, your lives will be hard. But the price you pay is for your freedom. Only I can protect that. And hear this: I will make Omega impenetrable. No one will _ever_ threaten my domain again. From this day on, the galaxy will know _one. hard. truth._ ” I turned outside of Afterlife to look upon her face, projected across the screen.

“Don’t. _Fuck._ With Omega.” And the little smirk. The people cheered, some already dragging Cerberus troops to face Aria’s vengeance. I turned to the batarian in front of me, raised my eyebrows. “You always get these crap details, Bray?”

“Not this time,” he said. “You’ve got a war to fight. We’ll get you off of this rock. We’ll need to prep the flotilla with your supplies aboard; you’ve got time.”

I blinked, and I nodded. “Thanks. I’ll be back soon.” I turned, ambled off a few short feet, and then I stopped, pulling the keycard from my pocket. Slowly, I set off towards a beaten path.

The way to my apartment was almost empty, being that everyone had taken to the streets to begin the purge. I went up, found my door, and swiped the key. The door’s opening matrix reappeared. I went to punch in the access code, then stopped, having to think before I remembered it.

Everything looked the same as I entered- dark, covered in dust, but otherwise the same. I hit the light as I came inside, looked at everything as it came up. I had never owned much to begin with, but my terminals powered on hopefully, data flooding the screens. Sighing, I strode across to my desk, and began to shut them down, sending the backups out to Liara’s address, labeling them simply, _be home soon._ This wasn’t home to me. Maybe it had been once, but not anymore.

With that done, I crossed to my shelves, opening them up. The few things I owned were inside- a few dresses I had worn to the clubs that I didn’t care about anymore. A few other trinkets that I couldn’t remember were for, various sex toys (wonder what shade of purple Jeff would turn if I whipped one of those out on him)- and something else, stuffed near the back. When I pulled it out, a memory came like a drell flashback.

 _My father came down in his lab coat, kneeling and showing me the stuffed lizard_. “This is the gold dust day gecko. _Phelsuma laticauda_ \- it lives in Madagascar, back on Earth.”

 _I took the toy from my father, looking it over and frowning to recall the facts he had repeated to me before; and would now want me to rehash to him_. “Madagascar. An island off of the eastern coast of Africa, relative to the Western Hemisphere.”

 _I’ve done well, he looks pleased_. “Yes, very good. If anything ever attacks the gecko, it can pop-” _I gasp._ “-its tail off and run away while the predator is still confused. And in just a few months, the little bloke’s grown a new tail, all better. Clever little fellows, aren’t they?

 _I looked at the lizard- it was quite cute, I thought, and so I hugged it and smiled_. “Gecko.”

I picked up the stuffed toy, ran a thumb across the worn, but still soft, surface. It was the vessel of a past I had clung to, memories of reading and facts drilled into me that I now knew were designed to test the limits of my mind. I was still finding out what I was, still digging deeper into my father's mess, the files I'd inherited; the closest thing to my biography. More his legacy, really. It had always been about him. And this was just one palpable token of a ruined, sacred trust. How could one redeem that? I wondered.

And yet, somehow, I couldn’t let go of it. It was a cute lizard, at any rate. I put it in my pocket and left the apartment, locking it after I left and tossing the key into the nearest garbage chute, leading down to the station incinerator.

I returned to the docks, weaving amongst the civilians and the Cerberus troopers being herded out, their hands in the air. Some, I saw, were being stuffed into fuel pods and ejected from the station. I watched a long moment, but a voice startled me out of contemplation before long. “I thought you would be gone by now.”

I turned to look at Nanra. “They had to prep my flotilla. I’ll be off soon, I was just…going through the old apartment. I’m not coming back.”

Nanra paused, and she nodded, mouth pressed together. “I can’t say I was hoping that you can stay. You’ve got more important things to take care of.”

“In a normal circumstance, there wouldn’t be anything more important than her,” I swore, lowly, looking around and finally locating the little girl- she was being bounced in a human man’s arms- middle aged, perhaps in his early forties. I turned back to Nanra, who sighed. “Yes, but this isn’t a normal circumstance. We _all_ need you out there. Dwelling _too_ much on her doesn’t do you any good, in the end.”

“Still,” I said. “I wish I could be there for her.”

Nanra chewed on that for a minute. “The doors closed a long time ago, Glenn. You lead a dangerous life. Too dangerous for her.”

“That’s a lot, coming from the woman who fought adjutants off using a pistol and a stripper pole,” I retorted, half-smiling.

Nanra didn’t appreciate my attempt to lighten the mood, looked back at me entirely serious. “I’d rather she had an estranged father than a dead one. A father she could contact when she’s older. Besides,” she fixed me with a more sarcastic look. “No one was getting liberated if T’Loak died in the dampeners.”

“I couldn’t have done it without you,” I said.

“Aria…” she began, trailing off. “She mentioned a…boyfriend. Prone to…shattering?”

“Jeff has Vrolik’s syndrome,” I shared. “It’s true, his bones are a bit fragile, but he’s been good to me. Much better than I’d dared hope for.”

A long silence between us. Nanra shook her head. “I just…you? You could probably have any rough and tumble marine you wanted. A tall, dark, handsome one. Rugged, scars, with a five o’clock shadow and a few tattoos. What’s so special about this guy?”

I looked at her, I shrugged, and I smiled. “He makes me laugh.”

Another silence. “Well, you really should go,” Nanra finished. “They’re bound to be almost done now.”

I hesitated, looked to Mnemosyne and the man, then to Nanra. “Let me talk to her,” I implored, pushing past Nanra’s weary look. “Just for a few moments, she doesn’t have to know who I am or…or anything. Just a few minutes, that’s all I ask.”

Nanra closed her eyes, put her face in her hand, and then sighed at last. “Fine. A few minutes.”

I smiled at her. “Thank you. I…I hope that the Goddess smiles upon you, if you believe in that. To the end of your days.” Without waiting for her reply, I hurried down to where Mnemosyne was sitting now. The man looked to Nanra questioningly, and she nodded. He afforded me one brief look, and then went back up to Nanra. In spite of his larger-than-average ears, he actually was a bit of a catch.

“Hello,” I said, sitting down by Mnemosyne.

“Hi,” she said. “Who are you?” she asked me. “Mommy wouldn’t tell me.”

I shook my head. “It’s not important. I’m going to leave here soon, and…” I paused. “There’s something of mine that I want you to have.” I pulled the lizard from my pocket, showing it to her. “This is a gecko. It's a little animal from Earth.” Mnemosyne looked at it curiously, taking the proffered lizard. “Now, this little guy's got the heart of a dragon. He'll protect you, keep you safe. Keep you company, when there's nobody else. He's a very good listener.”

“He's small,” said Mnemosyne, turning him over and frowning curiously.

“Well…” I pointed to where our shadows bled across the walls, made long by the light’s angle. “Sometimes even the smallest of us can cast the biggest shadows.”

The little girl gasped with delight, hugging the gecko closed to her. I washed her face closely, the awe and the delight. Life was still a wonder for her, and I’d fight like hell to keep it that way. “You and your mother…” I spoke, at last. “You look after each other, all right? It's a tough time right now, but things will get better. And when it does, you'll live on a planet, with a real star. One that rises and sets.”

Mnemosyne looked to me. “What is it like?”

I paused, thinking hard to remember Kahje, the way the star looked, rising above the ocean’s horizon. “…it's beautiful. There aren't any words I can think of to describe it to you.” Unwillingly, I stood up, fixed my jacket cuffs, looked to her. “Until then, you and your mother stay together. That's the most important thing you've got, is each other.”

“And gecko,” she amended.

I couldn’t help my smile. “And gecko.” At last, with a sharp pang somewhere in my chest, I turned to go. “I'll be seeing you around, kid.” She would far outlive me, by many, many hundreds of years.

I walked away, striding for Bray at the docks, but suddenly behind me there was a rapid patter of small feet, hurrying to catch up with me. “Wait!” I turned at once, all too ready to heed my child’s call, kneeling to meet her- her arms laced around me as she collided into me, hugged me tightly, her head near my ear. “Bye, Daddy,” she whispered. She let go of me, stepping back, whirled around and ran back to her mother and the man beside her, the gecko held tightly in her arms.

I wasn’t aware of the tears in my eyes until one was streaking down my cheek. “Goodbye, darling,” I whispered, watched her until she made it home safely. I made eye contact with Nanra one more time, and then I turned and left.

As I stepped aboard the ship, the helmsman looked to me expectantly, asked, “Where to, Commander?”

I walked to the command console, leaned over the rail. “Set a course for the Citadel. We’ve got a war to win. As the fleet jumped to FTL and left Omega behind, so left I as well- save a piece of me. For all my bluster, one bit remained, was left behind in that little girl with the gecko in her arms. Perhaps I would never see her again, but-

As we traveled, I opened my omni-tool, and established a connection to the galactic banks- opened a new account in the name of Mnemosyne N’Dari, dropped a generous chunk of my profession’s bounty inside, and sealed it to open in precisely three hundred and fifty years.

If it was the best I could do for her, then I was already beating my father by a long shot.


End file.
